March 18, 2024

Tigerhawk girls qualify for state

Six individual area runners headed to state cross country

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Runners from four area high schools qualified for their respective state cross country races in Thursday’s Class 2A and Class 1A state qualifying meets.

Colfax-Mingo’s girls broke a 21-year drought. The Tigerhawk girls qualified for the Class 1A state cross country meet as a team for the first time since 1993, when the Colfax-Mingo girls won their second consecutive state title.

Collins-Maxwell/Baxter is sending two boys to the Class 2A state meet. Prairie City-Monroe qualified one boy and one girl for the 2A state competition while Lynnville-Sully has one boy qualified for the Class 1A state race.

The Iowa High School State Cross Country Championships are Nov. 1 at Lakeside Municipal Golf Course in Fort Dodge.

At Ottumwa’s Wildwood Park Thursday, the Tigerhawk girls claimed third place with 114 points. Pekin, who hosted the 1A meet, won it with 40 points and West Marshall was second with 57 points. Lynnville-Sully’s girls ended up fourth with 180 points.

Dakota Hostetter, a sophomore, led the Tigerhawk girls, finished third in the 4K race with a time of 15 minutes, 38 seconds. Senior Kennedi Hostetter was 11th in 16:35 and senior Iva Moore took 22nd in 17:29. McKinzie Tjaden, a junior, ran 26th in 17:44 and senior Bailey Pease was 52nd in 19:28.

Seniors Sara Lahart and Cassie Craig ran 68th and 69th, respectively, in 20:32 and 20:33. Colfax-Mingo head coach Zach Tomas said every girls ran a season-best time at the meet.

“The girls just had something a little extra tonight,” Tomas said. “This meet was another huge step forward for the Colfax-Mingo cross country program. Both the girls and boys teams realized many of the goals we set to start the season.”

Tomas said even though the Tigerhawk boys did not have any state qualifiers, six of the seven boys had career-best times in Thursday’s race and the other runner had a season-best time. Colfax-Mingo’s boys placed 11th as a team.

“The boys improved so much over the final two weeks of the season after struggling early on. I really think this speaks volumes to these kids, because they did not have the success they wanted early on but continued to battle and finished with an outstanding team place and individual times,” Tomas said.

Cameron Warner paced the Tigerhawk boys with a 17th-place finish in 16:52 followed by Alex Lewis in 70th in 18:53, Will Dunsbergen in 74th at 19:02, Jonathan Jacobs in 91st in 20:25 and K.C. Huffman in 92nd in 20:44. Cameron Lantry placed 99th in 22:17 and Jacob Frier ran 105th in 23:29.

Lynnville-Sully’s Canyon Kuhlmann, a junior, qualified for the 1A state meet again with a 10th-place finish at regional. He ran the 5K race in 16:08. The Hawk boys finished in a tie for seventh with Holy Trinity with each team scoring 276 points.

“Canyon got into a good position early on in the race and was racing to be in the top 10 the whole way. With a half mile to go, he was just outside the top 10 but made a hard charge down the stretch, then had a good kick to hold that position and finish in 10th,” said Darin Arkema, Lynnville-Sully head coach. “Through all the running during the summer and all season, his goal was to again make it to state and he worked hard to again earn that honor.”

Luke Jones was the Hawks’ No. 2 runner on Thursday, placing 47th in 17:54. Jake Brand took 51st in 18:18 followed by Connor Fraker in 82nd at 19:24, Jared Bassett in 86th at 19:38, Nic Lirio in 88th at 19:42, and Kordell Mueller in 107th at 23:36.

Lynnville-Sully’s girls went into Thursday’s regional looking to qualify for state as a team for a second year in a row. The Hawk girls came up short of that goal.

“Our girls battled strong and had solid races. Even though we didn’t earn a state berth I am very proud of each of their efforts in finishing fourth out of 12 full teams,” Arkema said. “Cori had a fantastic final race of her high school career. It was great to see her have probably her best race of the year tonight. Madison also saw her high school career come to an end tonight, and went out with a good effort.”

Seniors Cori Rice and Madison Ramusson led the Hawk girls in the 1A qualifier Thursday. Rice placed 14th in 16:50 on the 4K course and Rasmusson was 28th in 18:01. Shelby Foster finished 41st in 18:55 followed by Kasiah Ehresman in 46th at 19:04, Haley James in 51st at 19:14, Kristine Jaennette in 58th at 14:42 and Alexis Hardenbrook in 59th at 19:45.

At Pella on the Central College cross country course, CMB’s 11th-ranked Mark Deutsch qualified for the Class 2A state meet for the second straight year with a strong fifth-place finish in the regional. Deutsch ran the 5K race in 17:17. He will be joined at the state meet by teammate and fellow senior Colin Thomson, who placed 10th in 17:36.

Also qualifying for the 2A state meet are PCM’s Rachel Peter and Blaise Winegardner. Winegardner, a freshman, claimed sixth place in the boys’ 5K race Thursday in 17:20. Peter, a senior, captured fourth in the girls’ 4K qualifier in 16:20.94.

In the boys’ team standings at the state qualifying meet, CMB placed sixth with 116 points and PCM finished in a tie for 10th with 276 points along with Union. The CMB girls took sixth with 159 points, just ahead of PCM in seventh with 160 points.

“We are extremely excited for Mark and Colin as individual state qualifiers. This will be Mark’s second state meet Colin just missed out last year,” said Jerry Meinerts, CMB head coach. “Colin got out quick Thursday, and settled into that 10th-place position and just finished strong like he was on a mission and punched his ticket to state. Both these guys are seniors and they get a chance to finish their high school cross country career at Fort Dodge. Our other guys ran tough tonight, and they are all underclassman.”

Other placers for CMB boys’ were: 27. Max Van Maanen, 18:59, 35. Clavin Jones, 19:15, 43. Eric Hall Flooden, 19:32, 54. Carter Fricke, 20:08, 56. Evan Bianchi, 20:09.

Other placers for the PCM boys were: 42. Chris Ellens, 19:31, 67. Trent Howard, 21:13, 89. Rory Van Gorp, 22:41, 94. Max Van Gorp, 22:54, 96. Braden Phifer, 23:05.

Meinerts said both the boys’ and girls’ fields at the Pella state qualifying meet were tough.

“We knew going in that we had to have a perfect meet, and a little luck on our side to qualify, and we just didn’t have it tonight,” Meinerts said of the CMB girls. “Our girls ran very well and competed as hard as they could, but things just didn’t go our way.”

Winter Brown and Heather Jessen led the way for the Raider girls. Brown was 22nd in 18:00 and Jessen placed 23rd in 18:02. Others placing were: 37. Stephanie Twohey, 19:01, 39. Anna Jones, 19:11, 43. Chantel Maxwell, 19:23, 53. Whitney Spencer, 19:53, 57. Veronica Condon, 20:02.

Other placing for PCM’s girls were: 18. Rachel Stafford, 17:43, 28. Baylee Smith, 18:23, 56. Kiara Kapplemann, 19:59, 58. Morgan Novak, 20:05, 68. Mallory Bell, 20:41, 86. Bella George, 23:33.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at 641-792-3121 ext. 6535 or jsheets@newtondailynews.com.