SPRINGDALE — The bar was already set pretty high before Daniel Evans ever laced up his running shoes.

Evans’ older brother Andrew was a two-time state champion cross country runner at Shiloh Christian. Daniel Evans locked down his first state title last fall when he won the Class 4A title.

But this season he faced a tougher road as the Saints were elevated to Class 5A, where the competition was much faster. Matching his brother’s mark would prove to be a tall order.

And the season could not have started any worse for Evans.

“We started the season on our course and I ran a bad race,” he said. “Just a very slow race. It was muddy. I don’t know. I was just very disappointed.”

But Evans was able to overcome the poor first race with wins in a couple of races heading into the Chili Pepper Festival in Fayetteville.

Running against some of the toughest competition in the south, Evans ran a personal-best 16 minutes, 30 seconds. He used that as a springboard to close the season as one of the most dominant runners in the state, and earned the All-NWA Media Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year award.

“After the Chili Pepper, my confidence increased going into the conference meet,” Evans said.

He won the 5A-West title and also won the 6A division at the Rogers cross country meet, setting the stage for the state meet at Lake Hamilton.

“I always wanted to run at Lake Hamilton, because that’s where my brother won,” Evans said.

He clocked a 16:31 to win the 5A state title by 25 seconds over the second-place finisher, matching his brother for two state cross country titles, although he did it in two different classifications.

Evans also recently competed in the Oklahoma-Arkansas All-Star meet at Rogers, where he lowered his personal-best to 16:23.

He plans to run cross country in college, where he is looking at two programs currently — Union University in Jackson, Tenn. and Harding University in Searcy.

Evans’ brother runs for Harding, and he admitted the chance to run with his brother “would be cool.”

“Andrew is the reason I got into cross country,” Daniel said. “We’ve always been close, so to get a chance to run in college with him would be a lot of fun.”

With their personal marks set at two titles each, the competition between the brothers could be fierce.