Newly-ranked Hawks finish second at Grinnell

GRINNELL — The Lynnville-Sully girls cross country team continues to show they belong in the Class 1A rankings.

In the Hawks latest competition at Ahrens Recreation Complex, their first five runners ended up in the top 12 and the only squad who finished higher than them was 3A No. 20 Williamsburg.

“It really came down to us and Williamsburg and how we stacked up position by position,” Lynnville-Sully head cross country coach Darin Arkema said. “They were able to put a few more girls up front and came away with the victory. But they are a strong 3A team, and we were right with them.”

Williamsburg grabbed the top two individual spots at the Grinnell Invitational on Tuesday. All seven varsity Raiders ended up in the top 15 as they finished with 29 points at the top of the standings.

But the 1A No. 7 Hawks were not far behind in second with 40 and Newton (79) also had a solid day in third.

“The team came into the meet knowing third place should be a lock but also to not be complacent about it,” Newton head girls cross country coach Rachelle Tipton said. “They were not and finished farther ahead of Benton and Grinnell than last week in Williamsburg.”

Five area runners finished in the top 10 of the girls’ 5K race. Leading the way in third was L-S freshman Mandeesa Vos. She posted a career-best time of 21 minutes, 6.3 seconds.

Olivia Norrish (22:02.1), Emma Parkinson (22:03.9) and Peyton Sharp (22:12.5) were 7-8-10 and freshman Breah Lowry (22:34.9) posted a career-best time in 12th.

Abigail Ver Ploeg was the non-scoring runner for L-S. She was 30th in 25:33.6.

“The girls found themselves much closer to the front early on in the race. Not because they started faster than previous races, but because there weren’t as many schools or as tough of competition,” Arkema said. “I was really pleased with how tight our top five were together. Only 90 seconds separated our first through fifth runner. That is going to be a big key to their team success.”

Freshman Audrey Muckler led the Cardinals and earned a top-10 medal in fifth. She posted a career-best time of 21:26.7.

Newton’s varsity posted four career-best times and a pair of season bests.

“Audrey followed her game plan and hung tough with Vos,” Tipton said. “Even when Vos pulled away, Audrey found the mental fortitude to keep pushing and hold her fifth position.”

Bella Winther turned in a season-best time of 23:10.8 in 14th, Sarah Malow posted a career-best time of 23:46.9 in 19th and Meghan Trout was 20th with a career-best time of 24:03.7.

Alivia Kingery (career-best 24:04.6) was the final scoring runner for the Cardinals.

Talia Friedman (career-best 24:09.9) was 22nd and Hadley Kruse (25:39.4) finished 31st as non-scoring runners.

“Bella came out and had her best showing at this meet,” Tipton said. “She worked through the second mile to close a gap to the pack in front of her and beat a couple runners in it. She pulled that Newton pack along and they all did a great job of pushing each other and not settling. There was a lot of good jockeying for their places going on. I was happy to see Alivia in that mix and earning herself a big personal best.”

Williamsburg’s Channing Becker won the girls’ race in 19:57.9 and Edie Axmear was the runner-up in 20:59.4.

After Newton in the team standings were Benton Community (114), Grinnell (118) and Montezuma (144). BGM, Knoxville and South Tama County had incomplete teams.

Newton’s Chloe DeRaad, Mia Van Zante and Abbie Preston were 9-10-11 in the junior varsity race.

Tipton said junior varsity runners Ashlyn Wallace and Laek Sullivan both posted career-best times and Tamika Rodenboom’s 5K time was a season best.

“(The JV athletes) will turn around and race on Thursday (at Colfax-Mingo) and the varsity will run Saturday (in St. Louis), but tonight should help keep the momentum going,” Tipton said.