LEONARDTOWN, Md. — The girls’ cross country team at Father Andrew White School captured their first Maryland Private School State Championship at the tournament on Nov. 5. The team placed first out of 28 teams to become the 2025 state champions. This was the school’s first year competing in the championship.
Out of 173 female athletes competing, six Father Andrew White School athletes came in the top 50: Courtney Burfield, 4th; Elliana Casto, 15th; Lily Mabrey, 17th; Amelia Mabrey, 26th; Ava Jones, 32nd; and Maddie Huett, 48th.
Father Andrew White School’s boys’ cross country team also competed in the tournament, coming in 10th. Members of the boys’ team placed 14th, 21st, 56th, 137th and 171st out of 296 athletes competing.
This is only the school’s third year with a cross country team, and coach and athletic director Katy Burfield said she was excited for the kids to have the opportunity to get outside their area and see all the schools who were participating. She was optimistic about their odds once she looked at the team’s data.
“People improved their times a lot throughout the year. We reviewed the times for a lot of schools competing, and I knew that if the girls ran as a team, they’d be competitive.”
Burfield said that changing the strategy was what helped bring them the win. Instead of focusing on improving individual times, the girls focused their training on working together and placing in certain spots to boost their team score.
“The girls were given a mission, and they followed through,” Burfield said. “They knew they had to run for each other and as a team.”
The team has already been invited back for next year, and Burfield is excited to keep growing the program, not just at Father Andrew White School, but in the region. Her school’s team has gone from 40 to 73 runners in the last three years, and she said she was “excited” that they were already capable of competing at such a high level.
“I knew they could compete based on the numbers,” she said. “But seeing them accomplish it was truly remarkable.”
As the team gets ready for next year, Burfield is also hoping to grow with the schools they participated with and find more opportunities to introduce cross country to people in Southern Maryland. That, she says, is her biggest goal: to give more kids the opportunity to find the love of running.
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