November 14, 2024

Cardinal, Mustang harriers run in Gilbert Invite

By Newton Daily

Newton High's Ashay Malow seen here in the 2018 state qualifying meet had a strong 2019 season-opening race for the Cardinal girls' cross country team. She finished in the top 10 at Thursday's Gilbert Invitational at Ames. A techincal problem with the timing system prevented offical results being available from the meet in which the Newton and Prairie City-Monroe squads competed. (Jocelyn Sheets)

AMES — Newton High junior Ashay Malow picked up where she left off in 2018. Malow reached the Iowa Class 4A state cross country meet last year and in the 2019 season-opening meet Thursday, she turned in a top-10 finish.

Newton’s Cardinal girls and boys along with the Prairie City-Monroe Mustang squads ran their first meet of the season. The story out of the 2019 Gilbert Invitational meet Thursday was a computer malfunction.

After running the 5K races on the Iowa State cross country course at Ames, teams left not knowing official results. The two Jasper County schools competed in the Class A — larger school — division races.

“Overall, the girls had a great first race,” Newton girls’ head coach Rachelle Tipton said. “It’s good to see Ashay come out and push with the front runners. She has big goals this season and this was a great start.”

Tipton provided “unofficial” results from the A girls’ race but the timing official informed coaches only the winning time for the race was correct. Steve Weeks, the Cardinal boys’ head coach, said no results for the boys’ Class A race were available.

“Outside of the results, the race went well,” Weeks said. “All of our times dropped from last year.”

PCM head cross Eric Karr told the Newton Daily News, he wouldn’t have results from the meet to send until Friday. PCM’s top returning girls’ runner senior Klaire Jungling began the race but had a problem on the course and did not finish.

According to the results sent by Tipton, Newton’s girls were seventh with a team score of 214. PCM was 10th with 264 points in the 14-team field.

Ballard won the Class A girls’ team title with 32 points led by individual winner Shewaye Johnson who ran the 5K course in 20 minutes, 12 seconds. Dallas Center-Grimes was second with 35 points and Norwalk took third at 115.

“Our girls battled well in the heat and even without full results I know some had better times than this meet last year. They’ve set the stage for what can be an exciting season,” Tipton said.

Sophomore Kelsey Church was Newton’s No. 2 runner finishing 46th followed by freshman Kate Muckler in 74th and sophomore Morgan Stalzer running 75th. The final scoring runner for the Cardinal girls was junior Willow Oswalt in 86th.

A pair of freshmen led the Mustang girls in the opening race. Paige Steenhoek finished 26th and Riley DeVore was 4th in their first high school 5K race. Junior Margo Chipps was 72nd followed by freshman Jillian Fairbanks in 103rd and sophomore Taryn Steenhoek in 122nd.

“Jackson Mace and Treycen Garton were towards the front and they were joined by first-year distance runner Brennan Amos who finished second of all the Cardinals,” Weeks said for the Newton boys. “The scorers were rounded out by Luke Zaabel and Hunter Kennedy.”

The Newton teams will run at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Williamsburg cross country meet. Both Newton and PCM compete on Sept. 10 at Grinnell.

Other area girls’ places were:

Newton: 88. Tes Schuster, senior; 120. Jenna Smith, senior; 121. Kathia Rosario, sophomore; 145. Lexi Pollock, junior; 192. Heather Perry, sophomore; 202. Sydni Followill, junior; 203. Abigail Adkinson, junior; 212. Alyssa Hinderberger, freshman; 215. Jillian Waits, senior.

PCM: 152. Hannah McCarthy, senior; 156. Emma Hiebert, freshman; 179. Teagan Glover, freshman; 195. Allana Klein, freshman; 205. Jocelyn Brandt, freshman; 209. Hanna Townley, sophomore; 216. Rylee Gallaher, freshman.