NCHSAA State Championship Results
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South Stanly star freshman Kenadie Baker had been undefeated throughout the 2025 cross country season notching wins at Carolinas Kickoff, Hare & Hounds, the Stanly County Championships and her 2A Central Regional, but would have her biggest test at the NCHSAA 2A State Championships.
She'd come into the state meet amongst the favorites, but would have Annie Lewis (Swain County) fresh off a big PR to win the 2A West Regional of 18:02 as well as Shea Roche (Christ the King) who was just six seconds slower than her at Hare & Hounds where Baker ran 18:27 to Roche's 18:33 in different races.
While it looks like an exciting three girl battle on paper with all three girls running at their best, just three weeks before the state meet Baker was hit by a car while on a run to put the remainder of her season in jeopardy.
She was running through Norwood, NC, where South Stanly high school is located, on October 10th after coming off winning a Stanly County Championships with the YVC Conference Championship meet on the horizon. She was running on the sidewalk through town approaching an intersection needing to cross the street to continue down the sidewalk. As she approached a car did as well. She had thought the car had seen her as it came to a stop, but cited some trash cans were between them and realized after the car did not see her.
She went to cross the street the car moved forward hitting Baker on the left side of her body throwing her onto the hood of the vehicle then to the ground. The car came to a stop, but stopped on top of her left foot. Once realized the driver backed up off her foot, but Baker was in a lot of pain down the left side of her body as well as her foot.
The driver called 9-1-1 and Baker had her phone on her and called her Coach Parker Hatley to tell him what happened. Hatley raced to the scene with an ambulance also on the way.
Baker's mother was able to come as well and Baker was tended to by the ambulance and went to the emergency room with her mother and Coach Hatley to get further evaluations.
She'd stay at the emergency room until 10 PM that night ongoing some testing and an X-Ray on her foot that had significant swelling. She had bruising all up and down the left side of her body where the car had hit her as well and overall was in a lot of pain.
The X-Rays came out that she had no breaks or further injuries in her foot and things would recover over time. But with championship season just being days away she didn't have much time to recover before the most important part of her season.
Baker say that running is her passion and being a part of the South Stanly HS team make it so much more fun. She was determined to make a comeback.
Just four days later Baker's body was feeling better and swelling in her foot was going down, but wasn't 100% better by any means. She'd go for a 1.5 mile run and things felt ok. As she continued to train it was seeming like her foot would get better the more she was able to run.
Baker would miss the Yadkin Valley Conference Championships, but the conference still honored her as being an All-Conference runner based off the season she has had.
Two weeks after the accident was the 2A Central Regional. She'd been able to get some lighter workouts in while slowly building up her mileage back to her 40 miles per week. The regional was run at the state meet course, Ivey Redmon Sports Complex, and she'd take the win running 18:38, 90 seconds ahead of second place. The meet was special for the program as it was the first time they'd enough athletes on the team to yield a full team at the Regional meet in the last decade.
She certainly wasn't 100%, but the race would give her a lot of confidence that she could compete close to her best abilities a week later at the state meet.
As the 2A State Champion got underway Friday morning, Lewis and Roche took the pace out hard putting some distance ahead of Baker early on. Baker would be a little bit back as they went through the Mile, but would close the gap as they got into the second half of the 5000m race.
She'd move to the front and was setting the pace ahead of Lewis. Lewis is very strong in cross country, but her strength is her speed being the two time defending 1A 800m State Champion with a 2:10 personal best. So Baker would look to pull away from Lewis and was able to do just that as she took the win in 18:17 to Lewis' 18:28 for the NCHSAA 2A State Championship.
While her foot and body was certainly hurting after the state championship run, Baker was all smiles and thrilled to have won her first state championship especially after all she'd been through.
Baker's time would be the 13th fastest of the entire weekend with 8 classes of competition.
Baker will continue her recovery, but plans to keep training to compete in the freshman race at the Brooks South Regional Championship to cap off what has been a difficult, but very successful freshman cross country season at South Stanly.
