Season-best time helps Lenz advance to Fort Dodge

PELLA — Cooper Lenz’s first 5K time of the season eclipsed 19 minutes back in early September. And it wasn’t until the Cardinal sophomore went under 17 minutes that he felt like advancing to the state meet was possible.

But after running his best time of the season on Wednesday, Lenz is headed back to Fort Dodge and will compete in the Class 3A state cross country meet after an 11th-place finish in the 3A state qualifier at Pella Sports Park.

“It feels amazing. I didn’t know if I could do it, but it feels awesome to know that I made it again,” Lenz said. “After I ran at Fort Dodge, I knew it was going to happen. Now I need to fine tune how I go out and run my races. I might try to go a little slower at the start and see how that goes.”

It was a bittersweet day for the Cardinals as Lenz was the only qualifier after the Newton boys cross country team placed seventh in the 13-team field.

The top three finishing teams and the first 15 individuals qualified for the state cross country meet. There were no extra spots given out this season as second-ranked Pella had four finishers in the top 15.

“The boys ran a fantastic race, and by looking at times I told them we could achieve as high as third place, and as low as eighth place, and that still would have been a good race,” Newton head boys cross country coach Steve Weeks said. “Not to be cliché, but I really am proud of these guys. They’re not represented by a single race result but rather the entirety of all they do inside and outside of cross country, and I’m so proud to be their coach.”

Lenz was purposeful in his strategy to get out as fast as he could and stay up front for as long as he could.

He ran with race winner and 3A No. 2 Canaan Dunham of Pella in the early portion of the boys’ 5K race and was able to hang on to a top 15 spot.

His time of 16 minutes, 57.28 seconds was a season best. The 15th and final qualifier ran a 17:08.83.

Dunham won the race in 15:05.57. Class 3A No. 10 Isaac Rankin of Knoxville was the runner-up in 16:15.68.

The only other ranked individual in the field was 3A No. 27 Collin Kessler of Winterset. He finished ninth in 16:37.6.

Lenz qualified for the 2A state meet as part of East Marshall’s cross country team last season. This year, he will try to move up the field in 3A.

“This last third of the season I really tried to execute the strategy of running up front right away,” Lenz said. “I feel like that helped quite a bit. I tried to stay with or get ahead of any Pella runners. My goal for a time was 16:45. But I hoped to be about 10th overall.”

Weeks admitted to learning on the job with his new runner. But things fell in to place at the right time.

“Since day one, Cooper has fit right in with the team and we’re proud of the season he’s had,” Weeks said. “As a coach, I was a bit scared I wasn’t training him well, but everything has been clicking at the end of the year when we want him to be peaking.”

The next best finisher for Newton was Javin Doland, who was 25th in his final prep race with a time of 17:35.53.

Christian Buchli capped his career with a personal-best time of 17:44.83. That was good enough for 30th.

“Senior captain Javin Doland had a rough summer and his training started much later than everyone else on the team, but he still went out in great fashion and produced some fantastic times,” Weeks said. “Senior Christian Buchli finished with a fantastic personal-record day.”

Lance Zaabel and David Wickett were the final scoring runners. Zaabel was 43rd in 18:18.95 and Wickett posted a career-best time of 19:16.31 in 56th.

Drew Lamont (19:24.44) and Levi Zaabel (19:40.89) were non-scoring runners in 59th and 65th, respectively.

“David Wickett also had a personal record,” Weeks said. “Lance Zaabel, Levi Zaabel, and Drew Lamont had great races, but you can tell their mid-season illnesses they suffered earlier had been messing with them for the rest of the season. It’s a tough balance trying to return to compete but also giving plenty of time for recovery.”

Class 3A No. 2 Pella won the boys’ team title with 35 points. The Dutch had four individual qualifiers in the top 10 and all seven runners were in the first 22.

Class 3A No. 13 Washington (71) and 3A No. 12 Bondurant-Farrar (96) were the other two state qualifiers. The Demons had three in the top 12 and the Bluejays placed their top five in the first 31 spots.

Winterset (119) and 3A No. 18 Fort Madison (121) completed the top five and the rest of the 13-team field featured 3A No. 20 Oskaloosa (145), Newton (165), Knoxville (173), Fairfield (268), Mount Pleasant (305), Saydel (329), Des Moines Hoover (344) and Keokuk (367).

Washington had three individuals in the top 15, while Bondurant-Farrar, Winterset and Fort Madison all had two individual state qualifiers.

“We just had a lot of solid teams there after Pella with Pella just being an outstanding team,” Weeks said. “But all the pieces didn’t fall into place.”