For the thumbs
- Updated: November 8, 2024
With eight state-championship rings to her credit in cross country and track, White Plains’ Conn goes to Saturday’s state XC meet looking to add bling to her thumbs.
Area state qualifiers
Qualifying teams/individuals for Saturday’s state cross country championships at Jesse Owens Park, near Moulton. The top four teams at sectional and top six individuals not on the sectional rosters of the four qualifying teams advance to state:
TEAMS
Alexandria boys and girls
Central-Clay boys and girls
Donoho boys
Faith Christian girls
Glencoe boys
Handley boys
Jacksonville girls
Lincoln boys and girls
Munford girls
Oxford boys and girls
Piedmont boys
Pleasant Valley boys and girls
Saks boys and girls
Southside boys and girls
Westbrook Christian boys
White Plains boys and girls
INDIVIDUALS
Reagan Tallent, Cherokee County, So.
Cameron Rogers, Faith Christian, Jr.
Marie Giles, Glencoe, 8th
Crosby Smith, Glencoe, 8th
Emilee Diamond, Handley, Sr.
Cadence Hinson, Handley, So.
Dhami Patel, Handley, 8th
Ethan Patterson, Hokes Bluff, Sr.
Rua Mathis, Jacksonville, So.
Colin Thurman, Jacksonville, Jr.
Anthony Cruz, Munford, So.
Josue Garcia, Munford, Fr.
Ashlie Easterwood, Ohatchee, Sr.
Owen Vinson, Ohatchee, Fr.
Rylie Ann Holbrooks, Piedmont, Sr.
Morgan Studdard, Piedmont, Sr.
Keidy Morski, Westbrook Christian, 8th
By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Today
WHITE PLAINS — For all of the state-championship rings Maddyn Conn owns, the missing ring just might be most consequential.
File it under the Michael Jordan quote about his failures being why he succeeds.
“Back in ninth grade, that girl got me right at the end,” said Conn, now a senior cross country and track phenom for White Plains. “Ever since then, I was like, ‘No.’
“I’m not letting that happen.”
Conn will seek her third consecutive Class 4A cross country state title at Saturday’s state meet on the Jesse Owens Park coure, near Moulton. If she succeeds, she’ll finish her senior cross country season with 10 victories in 10 races.
She’ll also earn her ninth state-title ring, with more likely to come in the indoor and outdoor track seasons. Barring something unforeseen, the Jacksonville State commit will likely finish her high school career with one ring each for both thumbs.
She just might run out of fingers and thumbs before she runs out of rings.
Put simply, Conn is to her sports what Ohatchee’s Jorda Crook was to volleyball, basketball and track. She’s a generational athlete, one of the best to come through Calhoun County.
Her receipts come in cases. White Plains’ Over The Hill Gang presented her the latest of her eight state-championship rings between basketball games on Feb. 2.
“I knew she would be good, but I had no idea she’d be the queen of 4A,” said John Moore, Conn’s first cross country coach at White Plains. “I didn’t know she would have the career she’s had.
“She’s had an amazing career. She’s got more rings than she has fingers.”
Moore, who coached Conn through her freshman year, swayed her to cross county from volleyball. He swayed her with persistence.
Moore was Conn’s PE coach in fifth grade. He assembled a group of Conn and her friends together to win the USATF state championship.
“I thought, ‘Great!’” Moore said. “I’ve got this group of fifth-grade girls hooked on running, so I’ll be able to replenish when they’re in seventh grade.”
Conn and her friends won the USATF state title again in sixth grade, but Moore’s big dreams for Conn to join White Plains’ varsity team as a seventh-grader took a detour. Conn wanted to play volleyball, also a fall sport.
They talked about her starting cross country late, once volleyball was done, but Conn didn’t come out for cross country.
“She was like, ‘Well, I haven’t been running, and I don’t want to join a team and mess anybody up,’” Moore said. “I said, ‘That’s fine, but you know what? You’re going to come out next year.’
“She said, ‘Yes sir. I will,’ so then I just hounded her throughout the school year.”
Conn kept her promise and played both sports as an eighth–grader. Brother Sawyer Conn was running cross country, so she decided to do more than watch his races.
She came out for cross country about three weeks into the season, once volleyball ended, and ran a 25-minute time at Chickasaw Trails.
The rest is history, or soon to be.
She was striding to her first state title in 2021, but Bayside’s Annie Midyett passed her late to win … 18:59.35 to 18:59.89.
“I was just kind of getting into running still,” Conn said. “I had been running, maybe, a year and a half, so I wasn’t really bothered by it at first.
“Once I ran a lot more, I was just like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna get her next year.’”
Conn beat Providence Christian’s Millicent Talmadge in 2022, 18:59.61 to 19:26.16.
Conn found her beast mode in 2023, and her state run produced an iconic picture. She’s running by herself, no strain showing on her face, while onlookers lining the course behind her crane to find the next runner.
Conn finished in 18:30.32, Talmadge in 19:06.72.
She’s had quite a few lonely runs this year. She took off and left the Calhoun County championship field, setting a new course record in 18:25.76 and beating the nearest runner by 1:48.
Conn has finished first overall in every race but one this season, finishing behind Brewer’s Rose Betts by 19 seconds at the Fairview Invitational. The large- and small-schools fields field ran together, but Conn beat the 1A-4A field. Brewer is a 5A school.
“Maddyn, in her own mind, kind of counts that one as a loss, I guess,” third-year White Plains coach Chase Cotton said. “It was a fantastic race. Maddyn was with her the whole time.”
Conn enters Saturday’s state meet seeded first in 4A. She’s run a personal-best time of 18:11.57 seconds for the 5K distance, at the Lake Guntersville Invitational. Her nearest 4A competitor by time, Whitesburg Christian’s Isabelle Allan, PR’d at 18:51.
Conn beat Allan by nearly a full minute at the Section 4 meet in Scottsboro on Oct. 31, posting a time of 18:33.86 to Allan’s 19:33.79.
“It’s been really fun watching her this season, accomplishing all of the goals that she’s had,” Cotton said. “She’s got one more for this weekend, to win it, and she has a goal in her mind that she wants to run sub-18 on Saturday.
“I think she can, but of course, she wants to win it, more than anything.”
Cotton said Conn has grown from a soft-spoken “sweet girl” into a leader. She chases goals almost as fiercely as she chases her brother’s times. A sophomore, Sawyer Conn only recently started posting faster times.
Otherwise, “I just like working hard,” she said. “I like to be better just every day,”
Better than she was yesterday, or better than someone else?
“Well, both,” she said. “It’s just a fun thing for me. I find it enjoyable, and I like to do it.”
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