Eliza McCarley Snags JH and HS Titles in 1st Ever XC Season

In her first season of cross country, seventh-grader Eliza McCarley has proved herself a standout competitor, becoming both middle school and high school state champion in the 2021 season.

"To be honest," said McCarley's coach Morgan Fisher, "I credit all of Eliza's accomplishments and success to her grit and determination. Has she been traveling playing soccer, basketball, etc. since a young age? Nope. Did she have a lot of experience competing before this year's cross country season? Nope again. Does Eliza put in countless miles outside of practice? Not really. She was just blessed with long legs and a determined spirit."

Fisher, head cross country coach at Baldwyn High School, has known McCarley's family for several years. While he had not initially expected McCarley to be such a good runner, he said, "I knew after that first practice that she was something special and had a chance to be very good. All summer she worked the hardest at practice regardless of the heat or distance. Whether it was a warmup lap or cooldown, Eliza seemed to always want to be up front and never complained that I can remember."

Over the last six months of cross country season, Fisher said that McCarley "never complained, had a bad attitude, or tried to be lazy at practice, and I truly believe that is what helped her to succeed and set herself apart."

Since McCarley did not have a strong background of competition, Fisher had her start out the season running strictly middle school races although he knew she could have fared well at the varsity level. 

At her first race, the 2021 Hickory Flat Invitational at Blue Mountain College, McCarley won the two-mile race by a full minute, with a time of 14:07. She won her next race, the Saltillo Invitational, by 75 seconds. 

McCarley up front at the 2021 Saltillo Invitational

The 2021 Tupelo Invitational was a big race for McCarley, as she went up against Oxford's Maggie Irwin and Tupelo's Abbey Sanders. After one loop of the course, McCarley was slightly behind Irwin and Sanders but made a move in the last quarter mile, powering her way to a first-place finish by nine seconds and achieving a personal record of 12:47. According to Fisher, this victory established McCarley as the middle school girl runner to beat in the state.

McCarley's next race was the 2021 South Pontotoc Invitational, where the course was soaked from a storm the night before. With the course so muddy and the middle school state meet only two weeks away, Fisher told his runners to run hard but not get hurt. "Eliza did just that and remained in the front pack the whole race," he said. McCarley was in third with a half-mile left in the race and appeared barely able to stay upright in the mud, yet she still managed to race to a second-place finish a mere five seconds behind Abbey Sanders.

 "Going into October, we had one thing on our mind and that was the Middle School State Championship," said Fisher. Due to a school-mandated quarantine, Fisher was unable to be at the race in person, but he was confident in McCarley's ability to perform well. McCarley won the girl's small school race by over 30 seconds, becoming Baldwyn's first cross country state champion. 

McCarley winning the stacked 2021 Tupelo Invitational

The middle school season concluded, McCarley went on to compete in her first varsity race in her regional meet in New Albany. The race was moved up to Tuesday, Oct. 26 due to weather concerns, leaving less time than expected to prepare McCarley for her first 5k. She held with the front pack for the whole race and made a move after mile 2 but was ultimately unable to pull away from Walnut High School's Harley Garner. McCarley pushed Garner to a PR and finished a mere four seconds behind, with a time of 20:48. 

Going into the state meet, McCarley's goal was to take down the defending four-time state champion, senior Aubrey Britt of Loyd Star School. 

"I have had a girl race against Britt two other times and both times Britt hung with them for three miles and then muscled her way to victory so I felt like we couldn't beat her that way," Fisher said. "I began scouring MileSplit videos, articles, and stats to try and find a strategy for the big race and decided that Eliza's best shot to beat Britt was to come out hot and heavy in the first two miles to throw her off her game in hopes that Eliza can find some fight in the last mile to pull away."

To prepare McCarley for the race, Fisher pushed her through four hard practices with the goal of normalizing a 6:00 mile pace. Though he knew this was a tall order, Fisher reported that McCarley performed every single time. "She amazed me at how at such a young age she could be pushed for four miles straight only to pop off a 6:05 mile at the end. This is how I knew she could do it and win the whole thing but most importantly, now she knew that she could do it."

At the state meet on Nov. 6, McCarley's plan was to "get out in front early and run hard, and that is exactly what she did." Fisher hoped she could start out with a 6:05-6:10 first mile and come through mile 2 around 12:30-12:40, a pace that hopefully nobody, including Britt, could keep up with. 

McCarley and Britt battling at the 2021 MHSAA 2A Cross Country State Championships

As it turned out, Britt came through the mile by herself around 5:55 with McCarley 15 seconds behind, but Fisher still believed McCarley could pull off an upset. Sure enough, by the second mile, McCarley and Britt were shoulder to shoulder, and then McCarley began to pull away. In the end, McCarley won the race with a time of 20:00, becoming the 2A state champion and finishing 34 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Harley Garner.

Following up on this victory, Fisher has big plans for McCarley. "Our plans for the 2022 season are to win state as a team and Eliza repeat as state champion. Her running goals are to be at 19:00 for the first race and to replace Brooklyn Biancamano's spot as the top female in the state. We have new off-season and summer running programs we will be using in 2022 as well."

While Fisher does not think McCarley has the most natural athleticism out of the 2A athletes, he stated, "I do believe that she is one of the hardest workers and that she possesses the kind of grit and determination that will make her successful in whatever she wants to do in life."