Over the past twenty years, Parkway South has seen an impressive group of runners go through the cross country program. This includes the likes of Ben Brammeier, Nicky Matteucci, and Cole Tatro. However, even in this period of sustained success, rarely have we seen a runner have a sophomore season like the one Andrew Rebholz had in 2022. 

Rebholz joined the cross-country team as a freshman in 2021. Despite being relatively new to running, his extensive athletic background enabled him to thrive in the world of cross country.

“I’ve played a lot of sports since I was a kid including basketball, baseball, soccer, golf, lacrosse, swimming, and track,” Rebholz said.

The first time Rebholz showed his potential was when he ran a 19:22 at Gans Creek his freshman season. He quickly followed up that performance with a few other personal bests before he traveled to the Big River Invitational on Oct. 22. Going into the meet the expectations were high, but he said nobody expected him to run a 17:52.

“The whole team was shocked, I still don’t know how Andrew knocked over a minute off his time in less than two weeks,” senior cross country runner Srujan Garimella said.

Following an impressive freshman season, Rebholz was projected to be a key member of the cross-country team. In the first race of his sophomore season, Rebholz placed second behind teammate Cole Tatro at the Parkway Quad en route to a team win. Later in the season, Rebholz ran a blazing 16:26 at the Conference Championships. This was good enough for the fourth fastest sophomore time in South’s history. Despite Rebholz’s individual success, he remains focused on the team. 

“My favorite part of cross country is the camaraderie,” Rebholz said. “It’s amazing to be with a group of guys who love the sport as much as me and are willing to train with me to improve.”

At one of the biggest races of the season, Rebholz helped the team qualify for state for the first time in sixteen years. This meant Rebholz would return to the course where he had announced his presence to the running world a year ago: Gans Creek. At the State Championship, Rebholz placed 43rd in what he described as his favorite race.

“The energy there was crazy. Everyone there was ready to put all they had on the line and run a fast race,” said Rebholz. “The fans made the race. There was never a moment in the race where someone wasn’t cheering me on.”

Even as a sophomore, Rebholz has his eyes set on the future.

“I would love to run in college after high school,” Rebholz said. “My goal is to go to a Division 1 school, but even if I’m not able to do that, I would love to continue doing the sport I love.”

At the moment though, Rebholz is still focused on his high school career.

“My goal next year is to get top 20 in the state. I think it’s achievable, but it will be a challenge. My other goal is to break the 16-minute barrier in the 5k. It’s a huge barrier and would mean a lot of hard training, but I’m ready to give it all I have,” Rebholz said.