State ranked Hawks finish first, second at home meet

LYNNVILLE — Four ranked teams toed the starting line at the Lynnville-Sully Cross Country Invitational on Thursday.

And the Hawks and Pella Christian split the two varsity competitions at Diamond Trail Golf Club.

The Class 1A No. 6 Lynnville-Sully girls won its second team title of the week with five finishers in the top 14, and the 1A No. 16 Hawk boys tied 2A No. 11 Pella Christian, but the Eagles won the tiebreaker.

“It’s always a fun opportunity to host our home meet,” Lynnville-Sully head cross country coach Darin Arkema said. “We had a good lineup of 1A and 2A schools coming to compete so I was looking forward to seeing our athletes compete and their mindset and mental toughness.”

Both Pella Christian squads were missing at least one athlete in each varsity race. Class 2A No. 27 Bailey Vos was not in the girls’ race, while 2A No. 22 Sawyer Meinders did not compete for the Eagle boys.

The L-S girls won the team title with 33 points. Pella Christian (59) edged Pekin (62) for second and Collins-Maxwell (64) was close behind in fourth.

Sigourney finished 5-6-8 in the varsity girls’ race but had only four runners total. North Mahaska, East Marshall, Moravia and HLV also were incomplete teams.

Mandeesa Vos remained at the top of the L-S lineup. She was third in the girls’ 5K race with a time of 21 minutes, 50.1 seconds.

Olivia Norrish (23:13.8) finished 10th and Breah Lowry (23:59), Peyton Sharp (24:02.3) and Emma Parkinson (24:08) crossed the finish line in succession in 12th, 13th and 14th, respectively.

Abigail Ver Ploeg (26:01.9) was a non-scoring runner in 19th.

“Our high school girls did a good job at the start to get out quickly enough and have a good position,” Arkema said. “All six of our girls finished in the top 20 and kept a pretty tight pack together. I’m not sure the last time we’ve won our home meet, either boys or girls. I’m excited for them to get to keep the championship plaque at home and win both of the meets we had this week.”

Class 1A No. 4 Chloe Glosser of Pekin won the girls’ race in 20:21.3 and 1A No. 21 Jayden Peters of Collins-Maxwell was the runner-up in 20:51.

In the boys’ competition, both the Hawks and Eagles scored 46 points at the top of the standings. Pella Christian won the meet because of a better sixth runner.

The Eagles placed their first six in the top 23 and all seven in the first 27. The Hawks had three of the top six finishers but the first six were in the top 28.

“The boys top five also all finished inside the top 20 to medal,” Arkema said. “They were locked into a tight battle with Pella Christian for much of the race.

“It was an outstanding effort and we nearly beat a ranked 2A opponent.”

Pekin’s Cole Millikin won the boys’ race in 18:16.3. The Panthers were third as a team with 59 points.

The rest of the seven-team field featured East Marshall (124), Collins-Maxwell (124), HLV (145) and North Mahaska (156). The incomplete teams were Sigourney, Moravia and Keota.

Colton Alberts led the Hawks and was the runner-up in the boys’ race with a time of 18:18.5.

Blake Wilmesmeier (18:55.8) finished a few seconds in front of Hendrick Lowry (18:58.1) in their battle for fifth and Ethan Dunsbergen (20:24.5) and Keegan Schnell (20:25.7) also were back-to-back in 18th and 19th, respectively.

Madden Gunsaulus (21:13.8), Jordan Dunsbergen (22:16.2), Will Conover (22:24.9), Evan Arkema (22:34.3) and Andrew Arkema (23:49.7) were non-scoring runners in 28th, 35th, 38th, 40th and 45th, respectively.

“The high school boys’ race had almost twice as many runners as the girls so the start was again going to be important for early position and not allowing ourselves to get boxed in,” Coach Arkema said. “The boys definitely attacked the downhills. It was fun to watch them run loose and pass so many competitors just by not fighting gravity and letting the hill take them down.”