Alli Cash, who will be a senior this fall at Shawnee Mission West High School in Overland Park, Kan., was on the the “Faces in the Crowd” recognized in the current issue of Sports Illustrated.
Cash was singled out for her overall dominance and record-setting year in cross country and this spring in track and field competition. All the young distance runner managed to accomplish was repeat her three-gold-medal perfomance as a sophomore last year in the Kansas 6A state track and field championships by winning the 800 and 1,600 meters and running the anchor leg in the 4 × 800 meters relay. And this spring she raised the bar by adding victory and a fourth gold in the individual 3,200 meters.
In both the 1,600- and 3,200-meter events, the senior-to-be not only won the events but crushed the competition in the process. She won at both distances by more than 20 seconds. Her time of 4:52.31 set a new all-time state-meet record in the 1,600 meters.
Cash won the girls’ cross country state championship last fall, out-distancing her next closest opponent by 33 seconds. And a week ago, she competed in the Girls Dream Mile, sponsored by Adidas, in New York City, where she came in third.