L-S girls, Baxter boys lead area teams at Central College

PELLA — The Baxter and Lynnville-Sully cross country teams faced a loaded field at the Pella Dutch Cross Country Invitational on Saturday.

Half of the field for both boys and girls had a ranking before their name, and the Hawk girls and Bolt boys each claimed top-five finishes at Central College.

Lynnville-Sully’s girls came into the meet unranked but were four points better than Class 2A No. 16 Pella Christian and finished seven points in front of 1A No. 15 English Valleys.

“The level of competition doesn’t get much better as five of the nine girls teams and five of the 10 boys teams came into the race ranked in either class 3A, 2A or 1A,” Lynnville-Sully head cross country coach Darin Arkema said. “The spread or difference from runner one to five (scoring figured for the first five places) was third best out of all the teams. They finished fourth behind three ranked 3A perennial power teams, beat 2A ranked Pella Christian who was just ahead of them Tuesday and beat 1A ranked and conference rival English Valleys.”

Led by Mandeesa Vos, the Hawks came in fourth in the eight-team field.

The Baxter boys, led by state-ranked runners Matt Richardson and Max Handorf, were fifth in the eight-team field. The Bolts were 14 points clear of 2A No. 10 Pella Christian.

Vos led the L-S girls in 21st with a time of 21 minutes, 24.4 seconds. Peyton Sharp (21:47.9) finished 27th, Olivia Norrish (21:58.6) took 28th and Emma Parkinson (22:12) ended up 31st.

The final counting scorer was Breah Lowry (23:17.5) in 47th. Abigail Ver Ploeg (25:07.6) placed 72nd.

“I thought our poise and nerves were a lot better overall today than they were the first meet of the year on Tuesday,” Arkema said. “Having gotten that first meet out of the way helped everyone to be more comfortable with routines, preparation and warm-up to race.”

Baxter’s Makayla True (23:04.2) led the Bolts in 44th. The only other Baxter runner was Zoey Gliem, who placed 67th in 24:48.4.

Class 3A No. 1 Marissa Ferebee of Pella won the girls’ 5K race in 17:32.6. Class 3A No. 3 Elsie Brenneman of Pella was the runner-up in 18:08.4.

The 3A top-ranked Dutch won the girls team title with a perfect score of 15. Class 3A No. 4 Gilbert (91) was the runner-up, while the rest of the top five featured 3A No. 8 ADM (96), Lynnville-Sully (130) and 2A No. 16 Pella Christian (134).

Class 1A No. 15 English Valleys (137) was sixth followed by Oskaloosa (163) and Collins-Maxwell (179). Baxter was the only incomplete team.

The boys field featured 3A No. 1 Gilbert (23), 3A No. 2 Pella (32), 3A No. 7 ADM (109, 2A No. 11 Chariton (116) and 2A No. 10 Pella Christian (172).

Baxter finished ahead of Pella Christian (158) in fifth. Lynnville-Sully (184) was seventh followed by Oskaloosa (193) in eighth. The incomplete teams were Collins-Maxwell and English Valleys.

“The boys looked to find a way to show they could be competitive against some bigger schools and try to come away from the meet being the highest finishing 1A team there,” Arkema said. “I saw some decent downhill running from some in the group but collectively a point to work on, along with the use of their arms, specifically running uphill. Baxter took the honors of top 1A team, and they have a trio of high caliber runners leading them.”

Richardson, who is ranked 14th in 1A, finished 16th in the boys’ race with a time of 17:17.

Handorf, who is ranked 24th in 1A, was 21st in 17:38.1. Brecken Fisher (17:52.3) placed 29th, Maddox Peters (19:29) took 72nd and Logan Rainsbarger (23:01.6) was 136th.

Lynnville-Sully was led by Colton Alberts, who was 33rd in 18:05.3. Hendrick Lowry (18:15.1) edged Blake Wilmesmeier (18:15.7) for 37th, Sam Terlouw (19:31.2) finished 73rd and Keegan Schnell (19:39.2) took 79th.

Ethan Dunsbergen (19:44.4) and Evan Arkema (20:50) were non-scoring runners in 82nd and 105th, respectively.

“Colton bounced back from a little slip and fall at some point during the race, and would have probably broken 18 minutes if not for that,” Coach Arkema said. “A two and a half minute improvement over last season.”

Class 3A No. 2 Cainan Dunham of Pella won the boys’ race in 15:16.7. Class 3A No. 3 Logan Bleich of Gilbert was the runner-up in 15:31.7.