L-S girls punch ticket to state cross country meet

PLEASANTVILLE — When freshman Mandeesa Vos finished third in the girls’ 5K race at the Class 1A state qualifying meet on Thursday, she was super excited.

After being told the entire team was heading to state several minutes later, the excitement grew.

For the first time since 2013, the L-S girls cross country team is heading to the state meet and Vos’ third-place finish led the way for the Class 1A No. 5 Hawks.

“I think it’s really important to do this as a team and Olivia (Norrish) gets to go in her last year, too, which is awesome,” Vos said. “Coach Arkema is a really good coach so doing this for him is fantastic.

“Having only six runners at the beginning of the season, you wonder how good you can actually be. It’s a lot of one-on-one training, but there’s friendly competition in there and that’s helped us all out obviously.”

Class 1A No. 1 Earlham and the fifth-ranked Hawks were easily the top two finishing teams at Pleasantville Golf Course.

The Cardinals put their five scoring runners in the top 15 and the Hawks’ top five were in the first 21 spots.

The top two teams and the top 10 individuals in 1A advance to this week’s state meet. Vos was the only individual qualifier from L-S, but sophomore Emma Parkinson was just on the outside in 12th.

The L-S girls have advanced to the state meet nine times since 1994. The Hawks were third in 1994 before claiming back-to-back championships in 1995 and 1996.

Those teams included L-S assistant cross country coach Anna Arkema. Her husband, L-S head cross country coach Darin Arkema, was on the most recent boys’ state qualifying team in 1995.

Both Hawks’ squads will be headed to Fort Dodge for the 1A state meet on Saturday. It’s the first time in 29 years that both teams qualified together and only the third time total.

“What tremendous accomplishments by these athletes,” Coach Darin Arkema said. “The crowd of L-S supporters was truly impressive. We are so blessed to have a great group of young people to work with and blessed to have strong healthy bodies with the ability to run.”

Earlham came in as the clear favorite in the team race, but L-S was the only other ranked squad in the field. The Cardinals won the meet title with 28 points. L-S scored 46 points in second and was 36 better than third place Pekin.

The Panthers did have the top individual in the field as 1A No. 3 Chloe Glosser won the girls’ race in 18 minutes, 43.8 seconds.

Class 1A No. 11 Marie Yoder of Hillcrest Academy was the runner-up in 19:15.8.

Vos recently moved into the state rankings before the race and climbed to No. 21 after it. Her main focus was getting out as fast as she could and running with Glosser for as long as she could.

“That Pekin girl runs really fast times so my goal was to run with her for as long as possible,” Vos said. “I like math, and I think if you start really fast but eventually settle in to the pace it will be a lot faster time in the end anyway.”

Vos finished the race in a career-best time of 19:30.4. Parkinson’s 12th-place finish was clocked in a career-best 20:26.1. The 10th and final individual state qualifier posted a time of 20:05.9.

“I just wanted to run with all I had today,” Parkinson said. “This could have been my last race of the season. I gave it my all. As long as I do that, I’m OK with the end result.”

Earlham placed four runners in the top 10 and its fifth was 15th. Lynnville-Sully went 3-12-18-20-21-32 with its six runners.

Olivia Norrish is the team’s lone senior. She will be back at the state meet for the third time after qualifying individually in each of the past two seasons.

She was 79th in the girls’ 1A state race last year and placed 57th as a sophomore. Her time on Thursday was clocked in 21:31.7

“I wanted to make sure I knew who was around me because you know who has a full team and who are just running as individuals,” Norrish said. “I keep that in my mind as I run. If I saw Pleasantville, I knew they’d be around the top three and Pekin was a full team, too.”

Pekin scored 82 points in third and host Pleasantville was fourth with 94. WACO (115) was the only other full team.

The incomplete teams were Sigourney, North Mahaska, Southeast Warren, Wayne, Lamoni, Hillcrest Academy, Mount Ayr, Melcher-Dallas and Moravia.

The Hawks have been so good this season in part because their first five runners are usually packed closely together.

They were more separated in this race but still finished high enough to clinch their spot in Fort Dodge.

“The girls were slower than normal to get off the starting line on the gun, other than Mandeesa,” Coach Arkema said. “She got out hard and took to the lead for the early stages of the race.

“Others had to do a bit more navigating around other runners, which will be a talking point ahead of the state meet. By the time runners were to the one-mile mark, things were definitely spread out.”

Sophomore Peyton Sharp and freshman Breah Lowry finished in succession in 20th and 21st, respectively. Sharp came across in 21:48.9 and Lowry hit the finish line in 21:53.3.

Freshman Abigail Ver Ploeg (23:25.4) was the team’s non-scoring runner in 32nd.

“My race was OK, but there’s always room for improvement,” Sharp said. “It feels great and it’s exciting. We worked really hard as a team. Race up and give it your all. That’s all you can do every race.”

Lowry will cap a busy fall season where she dual sported with volleyball at the state cross country meet. Her goal was to be in the top 10, but she also recognized that making it as a team was the most important goal.

“It feels amazing. We’ve put in a lot of effort this year,” Lowry said. “I just always try to get out hard and ahead and then try to pass as many people as I can.”

Parkinson has settled into the team’s No. 2 runner in the last few meets. She also was more than a minute faster than her previous time from Pleasantville earlier this season.

“It’s awesome and it’s going to be great to go with this team and with these girls,” Parkinson said. “I have been feeling the motivation recently. I just go as hard as I can and if I pass out at the end, I pass out.”

Lynnville-Sully will be one of 15 ranked teams in the 16-team state field. Grand View Christian was ranked 13th going into the state qualifiers but did not advance. The top four teams — No. 1 Earlham, No. 2 Madrid, No. 3 English Valleys and No. 4 Treynor — did.

The Hawks defeated No. 3 English Valleys to win the conference title earlier this season.

“I’m so excited. It will be a different game going as a team,” Norrish said. “There will be a lot more energy, a lot more people and a lot more excitement.”

Lynnville-Sully has one final opportunity to prove it belongs in the top five of the rankings.

Coach Arkema believes his squad is capable of racing closer to the top-ranked Cardinals at the state meet.

“That word opportunity is what I’ve told the team all season long,” Coach Arkema said. “They don’t have to do this or have to do that. They have the opportunity to show how good of runners they are and accomplish some impressive things.”

The Hawks will begin the state meet from Box 13. English Valleys will start in Box 8, No. 16 Collins-Maxwell is in Box 9 and No. 8 Martensdale-St. Marys is in Box 10.

There will be individual state qualifiers in Box 12 but the other side of the Hawks will be No. 10 Maquoketa Valley and No. 7 Sioux Central.

“We need to work to find that mental focus and confidence, calm our nerves and be ready to compete at state,” Coach Arkema said. “I want the focus to be on mentally and physically being as ready as possible to make the most of the opportunity to be at state.”

Lynnville-Sully, Earlham, Danville and Sioux Central are the four schools who sent both cross country teams to the state meet.

Notes: L-S entered the state meet ranked No. 6 and Earlham was No. 2. The latest rankings moved the 16 state qualifiers into the rankings and both teams moved up one spot.