By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Shawnee County girls high school sports teams may likely remember 2025 as the year of near-misses, with seven county teams finishing second in five different sports while eight individuals/relays posted runnerup finishes.
But the county still had notable accomplishments to celebrate, with local schools capturing a pair of state team championships while local athletes captured four individual state titles.
Class 6A soccer champion Washburn Rural and 3A volleyball champ Silver Lake share the No. 1 spot on the TopSports.news Top 10 list for 2025 while Seaman track star Ryin Miller, who dominated the 5A state track meet with three wins and Highland Park wrestler Makayla Cadet, who captured her school's first girls state crown, hold down the next two spots.
Seaman posted runnerup team finishes in basketball and tennis while Silver Lake finished second in basketball and softball, Hayden was second in soccer and volleyball and Washburn Rural posted a runnerup finish in softball.
Individually, Washburn Rural's Molly Spader, Seaman's Koti Best and Taylie Heston and Shawnee Heights' Isabel Reyes all recorded second-place finishes in state wrestling while Rural's Morgan Ray and Topeka High's Ahsieyrhuajh Rayton were individual runnerups in state track, Seaman's Emma Sweeney was a singles runnerup in state tennis and Washburn Washburn Rural's 4x800-meter relay team also posted a second-place state finish in track.
Here's a look at TopSports.news' Top 10 Shawnee County girls prep stories of 2025:
Washburn Rural girls soccer celebrates its first Class 6A state championship after its 1-0 win over Mill Valley in PKs. [Photo by KSHSAA Covered]
1. TITLE BREAKTHROUGH -- Washburn Rural added the only missing piece from its impressive soccer resume with its first Class 6A state championship. Making their 11th straight Final Four appearance, including four runnerup state finishes, the 19-2-0 Junior Blues broke through with a 1-0 win over Mill Valley, taking the win with a 4-1 edge in penalty kicks. Rural was represented on the All-City first team by 2025 grads Destiny Higgs, Kate Hinck, Addyson Kaberline, Zahra Friess and Madison Lemke and then-junior Dayne Shriver while Junior Blues coach Brian Hensyel was named the city coach of the year.
Silver Lake volleyball capped a 46-1 season with the 2025 Class 3A state championship. [Photo by Scott Paske/KSHSAA Covered]
1. EAGLES FLY TO STATE CHAMPIONSHIP -- Silver Lake, which went 46-1 and ended its season on a 37-match winning streak, finished off its championship run with a 25-21, 25-19 win over Holton. The Eagles were represented on the All-Shawnee County team by senior Jaiden Wise, juniors Kylie Hanni and Jaylie Whitehead and sophomore Karys Deiter, with Hanni named the county player of the year and Eagles coach Sarah Johnson tapped as the coach of the year.
Seaman's Ryan Miller capped her junior track season with a sweep of the Class 5A 800, 1,600 and 3,200-meter runs in the 2025 state meet. [File photo/TSN]
3. MILLER SHINES -- Seaman superstar runner Ryin Miller capped off her junior track and field season in the 2025 strate track and field championships by sweeping Class 5A state titles in all three of her individual events, taking wins in the 3,200 (10:19.53), 1,600 (4:57.33) and 800-meter (2:11.14) runs at Wichita State. Miller's three wins in 2025 gave her five career titles and came on the heels of a banner 2024 cross country season, which included the fastest five-kilometer run in Kansas history (16:32.62) and a runnerup finish in the 5A state meet (17:26.36).
Highland Park then-junior Makayla Cadet became her school's first girls state wrestling champion in 2025. [Photo by Selena Favela/Special to TSN]
4. A SPECIAL BIRTHDAY -- Highland Park junior Makayla Cadet celebrated her 17th birthday in one of the best ways you could imagine, with a 2025 Class 5A state wrestling championship. Cadet, who went 23-4 on the season, became the first girls wrestler in Highland Park history to win a state championship when she pinned Basehor-Linwood junior Izzy Renfro at the 1:36 mark of the first period in Park City. Cadet's win over Renfro avenged a regional loss to the Bobcat standout.
5. OH SO CLOSE -- After winning state titles a year earlier, Seaman in Class 5A and Silver Lake in 3A both posted runnerup finishes in 2025 in girls basketball. The Vikings ran off 24 straight wins in the 2024-2025 campaign before dropping a 68-61 decision to perennial state champ St. Thomas Aquinas in the title game while Silver Lake, which had to reload after graduating a talented senior class from its 26-0 championship team in 2024, posted a 23-3 record last season, dropping a tight 48-45 decision to Halstead in the 3A final.
6. OH SO CLOSE PART II -- Hayden's girls soccer and volleyball teams came within a whisker of winning state championships in 2025. Klaus Kreutzer's Wildcat soccer team, which posted a 13-8 record on the year, advanced to the Class 4A-1A state championship game and took eight-time defending state champ Bishop Miege to double overtime before the Stags took a 2-1 victory to stretch their title streak to nine. Corrinne McGreevy's Hayden volleyball team, third in 4A in '24, advanced to the 4A title match and forced Andale to three sets before the Indians outlasted the Wildcats for a 25-12, 25-27, 25-22 victory.
7. OH SO CLOSE PART III -- Washburn Rural in Class 6A and Silver Lake in 3A posted second-place finishes in softball last spring. Rural, 22-8, dropped an 8-7 decision to Olathe West in the 2025 final after posting a third-place finish in 2024 and runnerup finishes in 2023 and 2022. Silver Lake, 25-7 last season, dropped a 2-1 decision to Frontenac in the '25 final after also finishing second to the Raiders in '24.
Seaman junior Emma Sweeney finished second in Class 5A singles this past fall, leading the Vikings to a runnerup team finish. [File photo/TSN]
8. NET SUCCESS -- Seaman junior three-time state medalist Emma Sweeney was the singles runnerup in Class 5A state tennis in the fall of '25, leading the Vikings to a runnerup finish as a team to Andover (39-33). Seaman's second-place team finish came after Jamie Robinson's Vikings swept city, United Kansas Conference and 5A regional team championships. Senior Molly Gorman, a four-time state medalist, finished sixth in singles and the Viking doubles team of senior Peyton Henry and junior Camryn Lux finished seventh to cap their first season as a doubles team.
9. OH SO CLOSE PART IV -- Washburn Rural star wrestler Molly Spader finished second in Class 6A at 105 pounds for the second straight season while Seaman's Taylie Heston (120) and Koti Best (125) and Shawnee Heights' Isabel Reyes (130) all finished second in 5A. Topeka High then-sophomore track and field standout Ahsieyrhuajh Rayton finished second in the 6A triple jump while Washburn Rural junior Morgan Ray finished second in the 6A javelin and Rural 2025 graduates Rylee Ismert, Brooklyn Nolte and Payton Fink and then-junior Emily Graf finished as the runnerup in the 4x800-meter relay.
10. HARVESTING HARDWARE -- In addition to the championship and runnerup teams mentioned above, six other county girls teams earned state tournament trophies with third-place finishes, including Washburn Rural in 6A bowling and wrestling, Seaman in 5A bowling, Hayden in 4A basketball and tennis and Shawnee Heights in 5A wrestling.
