Baxter harriers sweep Iowa Star Conference meet

WAVERLY — Brenna Thomson’s legs were full of mud, and Lauren Ratliff’s shoe nearly came off during her 5K race.

But not even a muddy course or cold, windy weather slowed down the Baxter harriers on Thursday at Wartburg College.

For the second year in a row, the Baxter girls are Iowa Star Conference champions.

Their counterparts took home the team title, too, winning the conference boys championship for the first time in program history.

“Two conference titles in a row is great,” said Thomson, who also won her first individual conference title.

“It’s great for Lauren and I. This is our senior year and it’s good to go out with a team win like this.”

After finishing third last year, Thomson, a senior, won the girls’ 5K race in 21 minutes, 22 seconds.

Ratliff also earned all-conference in fifth, one spot better than the sixth she claimed last season.

The top 10 runners in both the girls’ and boys’ races claimed all-conference medals.

On the boys’ side, junior Logan Berg was second, senior Ian Thomson placed fourth and senior Josh Bruntz took seventh.

“I am happy with second, but I am very happy with the team win,” Berg said. “That’s awesome. Coach told us what we needed to do to win, and we did it.”

The Baxter girls won the team title with 25 points. Collins-Maxwell was the runner-up with 33 points. Riceville was a distant third with 56 points followed by Clarksville with 60 and GMG with 63.

The Bolts put their four scoring runners in the first 11 positions and the fifth runner was 12th.

The Iowa Star Conference meet scores to four and the fifth runner is considered the final varsity runner.

“We knew it would be a two-team race. Collins-Maxwell has ran well all season and each of us has beaten the other,” Baxter coach Dennis Vaughn said. “We knew if we were 100 percent healthy, we had a shot at it.

“We ran very well today. Our goal was to have our first four runners ahead of their pack of runners, and we ended up having five runners ahead of their fourth. So we were happy about that.”

The Bolts will face a tough Class 1A field at the Marshalltown state qualifying meet next week. That field also includes Collins-Maxwell. That meet will score five runners. If both teams scored five runners on Thursday, the Bolts would have claimed a 10-point win.

“It feels great because we are going to see them again,” Vaughn said. “It gives us some confidence that we can run against some of those rated teams and have a chance to qualify.”

The Baxter boys won its first conference team title with 36 points. Dunkerton, last year’s champion, was second with 46 points. Valley Lutheran (47), Collins-Maxwell (63) and GMG (74) rounded out the top five.

The Baxter boys also would have won the team title if the meet scored five runners. They would have defeated Dunkerton by nine.

Brenna Thomson was in fourth at the halfway point of the girls’ race. She made sure she was in the front of the first pack when she came back around the 1.5-mile loop.

She knew the pack of four was still tight at the final stretch, but one last kick kept her in the lead.

“It was super exciting. I came in knowing I had a chance to win,” Thomson said. “I knew they were right behind me. I knew I had to give it all I had to keep the lead.”

Brenna Thomson was one second in front of runner-up Julia Klaes of Riceville. Clarksville’s Kori Wedeking, last year’s champion, finished third in 21:25 followed two seconds later by Janesville’s Paige Feldman.

“She has had some individual meet championships before, but this was a big one for her,” Vaughn said of Brenna Thomson. “It was great to see her get the title tonight. She ran a great race. It was a great mental race and a great physical race.”

Ratliff’s fifth-place finish was clocked at 22:15. Sophomore Kailee Conradi improved her placing by four spots from last year, finishing 11th in 23:19.

“I am happy with fifth, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I lost the pack that I wanted to stay with,” Ratliff said. “I have run with Brenna for six years though. I know she’s a very talented runner. Those other girls are, too.”

Junior Holly Jessen was 13th for the second straight season, coming across the finish line in 23:31. The fifth finisher was freshman Lilie Vansice, who was 14th with a time of 23:48.

Jessen was the final scorer for the Bolts but proved to be a big part of the team title as she was 23 seconds faster than the Spartans’ final scoring runner.

“The fifth runner never gets the recognition that they deserve,” Ratliff said. “That’s been Holly a lot, but she steps up when we need her to. When it gets cold, she starts to get fast.”

Runners who were not in the first five of their team were considered JV runners for this race.

Junior Maya Phelps finished her race in 25:07. That would have placed 19th in the varsity race. Senior Piper Larson finished in 28:13 and junior Bryn Schultheis crossed the finish line in 31:22. They would have been 29th and 42nd, respectively, in the varsity race.

Baxter’s boys claimed three of the top 10 positions. That was better than Dunkerton claiming four in the top 17 and Valley Lutheran having four in the first 18. Mostly because junior Will Hitchler finished in 28th as the Bolts’ final scoring runner.

“We figured it would come down to the three teams that finished in the top three,” Vaughn said. “We knew we’d have a chance to get three on the all-conference team. We told Will (Hitchler) that he didn’t have to beat the other team’s No. 4, but he needed to be close enough to them to give us a chance. He gave us a chance. He was six seconds off his PR and did what he had to do to help us win.”

Berg and GMG’s Jackson Edens are both ranked in the top 20 of Class 1A. They both have wins against the other this season, but Edens came out on top Thursday. The two runners were dead even after 1.5 miles.

Edens won the boys’ 5K race with a time of 17:42. Berg, who prefers to run in warmer weather, finished as the runner-up in 17:57. Berg was third last year.

“He used me as someone to draft off.” Berg said of Edens. “The cold weather is not my favorite. My face was numb the whole time.”

Valley Lutheran’s Owen Dawson placed third in 18:47. Ian Thomson was the Bolts’ second finisher in fourth. Thomson, who was the runner-up last year, finished this year’s race in 18:47.

Ian Thomson, who would rather run in colder weather as opposed to warmer, is still working himself back into shape after starting the season with an injury. But he ran by far his best race of the season.

“I have not ran well before today, working my way back from injury,” said Ian Thomson, who has run in only three meets this season. “I am still trying to get into shape, but this one felt good. Every day is better than the day before. I am finally hitting my stride. I seem to be getting better every race.

“It’s great to be able to get the team win. We knew it was going to be close. We were able to take care of business.”

Bruntz finished his 5K race in 19:29, which put him in seventh. He finished 11th last year, one spot off an all-conference honor.

“When coach scored the race ahead of time, he had me eighth or ninth and I thought that was ambitious,” Bruntz said. “I didn’t expect to come here and finish seventh, but it feels good. I’m just happy I can help this team win a conference title. I feel like they needed me, and I am glad I contributed to this win.”

Vaughn was happy for Bruntz, knowing how much coming up one spot short of an all-conference honor bothered him last season.

“That has haunting him and bugging him for a year. He was upset by that,” Vaughn said. “You could see the emotion when he crossed the finish line. He was very happy. It was good to see.”

Hitchler was the fourth and final scoring runner for Baxter. He placed 28th with a time of 21:10. Senior McCade Gowdy was the other varsity runner. He finished 37th with a time of 22:15.

Baxter’s four other runners were sophomore Sean Finch, seniors Derrick Klemme and Austin Good and junior Christian Brandt. Finch, Klemme and Good finished nine seconds apart in 23:25, 23:30 and 23:34, respectively. They would have finished 46th, 47th and 49th. Brandt was clocked at 24:49 and would have been 50th in the varsity race.

The rain that fell in Waverly the past week left the Wartburg College course a wet and muddy mess. Runners were covered in mud throughout and some runners even lost their shoes during the race.

“There were a couple of spots that were pretty bad. It was hard to run on at times,” Brenna Thomson said. “I was slipping and sliding a lot even with spikes on. Everyone was kicking mud up on each other.”

Ratliff added, “My heel came up out of my shoes a few times.”

The Bolts return to action at 3 p.m. on Oct. 18 at the 1A state qualifier at Marshalltown. The girls will face four ranked teams and two “teams to watch” that night, including Collins-Maxwell and 14th-ranked East Marshall.

Baxter defeated East Marshall at South Hardin by 14 points on Sept. 29. That was the Bolts’ best meet of the season, according to Ratliff.

“I think that helped the younger girls, showing them that they can run well. It gave them a little more confidence,” Ratliff said. “Our girls step up when we need to. They stepped up today, and we’ll need to do that again next week.”