South Dakota Class AA: Brianna Reilly Chasing Third Title

Brianna Reilly, Harrisburg Girls Looking To Keep Their Streaks Alive

Harrisburg freshman Brianna Reilly hasn't even finished her first week of high school, yet she's already etched her name in South Dakota history. The state's top returner and one of the best underclassmen nationwide, Reilly enters her high school career with back-to-back cross country state titles to her name and the No. 2 time in state history, 16:45.92.

As a seventh grader, Reilly finished one spot out of a qualifying spot for Nike Cross Nationals, but stepped up to the plate last November as she finished third in Sioux Falls before finishing ninth in the country at NXN.

In spite of her dominance, Reilly's quest for a third consecutive state title is not even remotely going to be a walk in the park, with Spearfish senior Peyton VanDeest and Harrisburg teammate Hannah Genrich both right on her tail after strong 2025 campaigns.

VanDeest, who was the lone South Dakotan to get the better of Reilly last fall, enters her senior year with a 17:04.30 PB and five consecutive top-six finishes at the SDHSAA Class AA State Championships. Before she heads south to the University of Nebraska next year, VanDeest would love to claim what's been an incredibly elusive title on the grass. This past spring, she took down Reilly on three separate occasions, winning the 800m, 1600m, and 3200m titles on the track, but only time will tell if she can continue her streak this fall.

Genrich, who combines with Reilly for one of the most lethal 1-2 punches in the country, heads into her sophomore year hoping to consistently get back down into the low 17s after running 17:04.9 as an eighth grader. Her freshman campaign ended with a seventh-place finish at NXR and a 75th-place finish at NXN, but with Harrisburg chasing a three-peat, she's more than up for the task.

In the team race, there are a lot of factors that contribute to Harrisburg entering the year as preseason favorites, and one of those is the previously mentioned fact that they've won the last two titles and return their electric duo of Reilly and Genrich.

Their No. 3 runner, Eloise Scharnberg, is an incredibly strong runner who ran 18:34 a year ago and could potentially finish ahead of most teams' first runner if all goes well.

Autumn Gilhooly (18:57) and Sarah Gilhooly (19:19) round out the top-five scorers for the Tigers, and both Kailey Winter (19:20) and Gracen Giegiling (19:40) make Harrisburg the deepest team in the field and set up to thrive even if the race comes down to a tiebreaker.

Led by Emily Curran, Brandon Valley is the top contender to unseat Harrisburg and will more than likely be able to hold off other challengers including Sioux Falls Lincoln and Rapid City Stevens.

Brandon Valley sports a 70-second split amongst their top-five runners but simply don't have the low sticks that Harrisburg does, and that's a pretty similar situation that Sioux Falls Lincoln finds themselves in as well. Just like the Lynx, the Patriots find themselves with a great team and even a low-stick frontrunner in Mia Kadi, but at the end of the day it's going to be a daunting task to prevent the three-peat.

As a junior, Reilly earned a top-five finish at the state meet and lowered his PB to 15:03.94 in September after entering the campaign with a 15:17 best.

In total, there are 11 other boys with a sub-16 PB to their name, and Carson Urlacher, a senior at Aberdeen Central, clocked 15:23.62 in his penultimate season and was sixth at the state championships a year ago, making him the third-fastest returner ahead of his final high school campaign.

Not only are Needles and Reilly going toe-to-toe with a state title on the line, but they're also both leading their teams' efforts in securing the team crown as well.

Contrary to what the numbers are predicting in a few months, last year's finish was anything but close. Needles and company managed to squeeze their entire top five into the first 15 spots, going 2-3-7-12-15. Sioux Falls Washington was the only team within range of the defending champs but ultimately still lost 39-81, with Brandon Valley winning a tiebreaker over Aberdeen Central with 124 points for the third-place trophy.

A year later, it appears that Sioux Falls Washington has the pieces to topple their in-city foe, but they'll need everyone's best to make it happen.

Each squad has their low-stick seniors jockeying for the win, followed by a strong No. 2 runner, with Griffin Miller (SFW) and Reid Groher (SFL) each coming in with a 15:43 PB.

Sioux Falls Washington brings their No. 3 and No. 4 runners not too far behind, with Ben Parsons and Hena Abreham having run 15:46 and 15:57 to put both of them in the top-15 finishers.

Sioux Falls Lincoln, on the other hand, has Henry Sayler and Frank Vandy Jr., having run 16:06 and 16:20.

But what Sioux Falls Lincoln doesn't have in sub-16 runners (for now), they make up for with their depth, with their 3-7 runners all running between 16:06 and 16:47, while Sioux Falls Washington's No. 5 runner, Jackson Boltjes (16:38), is sandwiched between Sioux Falls Lincoln's Riddick Iseminger (16:32) and Edrik Saeger (16:42), their No. 6.

Just like last year, Brandon Valley looks to be in a solid place to chase another podium finish, but Rapid City Stevens isn't too far back.