Hawks face loaded field at Williamsburg

WILLIAMSBURG — The Lynnville-Sully cross country teams faced the toughest competition of their seasons on Tuesday.

The boys’ squad went up against 10 ranked teams and the girls faced five squads ranked in Class 2A and 3A during the Williamsburg Cross Country Invitational.

The Hawks were 12th in both team races at Williamsburg Sports Complex.

“We had several make improvements in their time compared to the very first meet of the season we competed on this course, but as an overall summary I didn’t think we were very sharp, focused, determined or pushing to be uncomfortable compared to other competitors and teams we’ve faced at other meets,” L-S head cross country coach Darin Arkema said. “It is true that you are not going to set a new PR each race you run. And you can do all of those things and still not have the performance you were hoping for. But experience has taught me that when you aren’t dialed in, the likelihood of not having a strong performance increases.”

Olivia Norrish and Peyton Sharp led the L-S girls in the 5K race. Norrish was 32nd in 21 minutes, 52.19 seconds and Sharp finished 33rd in 21:52.56.

The other three scoring runners for the Hawks were Emma Parkinson (25:02.33) in 77th, Brooke Conover (26:21.02) in 87th and Helle Augustinussen (30:48.94) in 98th.

Conover was 3:39 faster on Tuesday than she was the first time the Hawks ran at Williamsburg. Sharp cut more than two minutes off her previous time and Norrish was 1:17 faster the second time around.

Class 3A No. 10 Maya Bergstrom of Carlisle won the girls’ 5K race in 19:44.11 and 3A No. 3 Ruth Dunham of Pella was the runner-up in 19:47.8.

Class 3A No. 1 Pella won the girls’ team title with 42 points. The Lady Dutch placed its five scoring runners in the top 16 positions.

Class 3A No. 3 Mount Vernon/Lisbon finished second with 72 points and the rest of the top five featured 3A No. 6 Solon (84), 2A No. 5 Tipton (104) and 2A No. 18 Williamsburg (142).

Carlisle (156), West Delaware (221), Pella Christian (222), Vinton-Shellsburg (269), Danville (281), English Valleys (290), Lynnville-Sully (315), Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont (328), Iowa Valley (404) and South Tama County (406) completed the 15-team field.

On the boys’ side, 3A No. 2 Pella won the team title with 41 points. 3A No. 5 Carlisle (80) was the runner-up and the rest of the top five included 3A No. 4 Mount Vernon/Lisbon (113), 3A No. 15 South Tama County (129) and 3A No. 9 Solon (141).

Class 2A No. 15 Williamsburg was sixth with 162 points, while 2A No. 6 Vinton-Shellsburg (162), 2A No. 14 Tipton (206), 1A No. 17 Danville (233) and 2A No. 17 Pella Christian (237) rounded out the top 10.

West Delaware (255), Lynnville-Sully (386), North Mahaska (393), Belle Plaine (419), HLV (427), EBF (508) and Waterloo East (517) finalized the 17-team field.

Hendrick Lowry led the L-S boys in 48th. He was clocked in 18:08.06. Colton Alberts (19:42.95) was 74th, Keegan Schnell (20:29.88) finished 85th, Ethan Dunsbergen (20:48.27) took 90th and Blake Wilmesmeier (21:14.42) placed 94th.

Evan Arkema (22:27.97) and Jordan Dunsbergen (23:20.61) were non-scoring runners in 100th and 106th, respectively.

Alberts improved his time from the first race at Williamsburg by 2:33. Schnell was more than a minute faster, too.

Class 3A No. 2 Canaan Dunham won the boys’ 5K race in 15:59.47 and 3A No. 10 Tommy Tyynismaa of South Tama was the runner-up in 16:08.18.

“We are in the middle of our Homecoming week with a lot that is going on, but we need to analyze and learn from things tonight, then move on and concentrate on good training the rest of the week and be ready and better for the next competition,” Arkema said.