March 29, 2024

Raider teams take eighth at South Hardin

SOUTH HARDIN — Collins-Maxwell Baxter’s cross country team continues to make strides, both in the times the athletes run and in the mind of their coach.

CMB traveled to South Hardin on Saturday to participate in the annual Invitational. Both the boys and girls teams finished eighth in the overall standings, and head coach Jerry Meinerts was very pleased to see his teams’ times continue to drop.

The Tiger girls won the team crown on their home course with 68 points. In second was Iowa Falls Alden with 102, followed by East Marshall (114), Webster City (123), Nevada (124), South Tama (163), North Tama (165), and CMB took eighth with 167 points.

Chasity Moody had the fastest time for the Raiders, running a 4K in 17 minutes, 9 seconds and finishing 24th. Running right alongside her was Winter Brown, with a 25th-place finishing 17:12. Stephanie Twohey was 31st at 17:33. Anna Jones ran 39th in 17:47. Chantel Maxwell snuck into the top-50, running 18:27 and finishing 49th. Mackenzie Klemme ran 18:43 to finish 55th. Veronic Condon was 66th with a time of 19:27.

“Our girls ran well today. I was very pleased with their efforts,” Meinerts said. “Their times are dropping, but so are everyone else’s. We need to continue moving up in the placings. Winter Brown ran extremely well today. She got out and ran with Chasity and held on the entire race. Steph and Anna had great races today as well. We’ve been working a lot on running a quicker pace and our girls did a great job of that today.”

The eighth-place boys finished with a team total of 202 points, running without captain Mark Deutsch due to illness. East Marshall took the top spot with 50 points, followed by Nevada with 92 and BCLUW with 110.

CMB was led by Colin Thomson’s 15th-place time of 18:40. Calvin Jones was 40th at 20:16. Brock Jonson ean 48th with a time of 20:53. Connor Johnson ran 52nd in 21:28. Jacob Hallett (22:04) and Drake Caple (22:14) ran side-by-side for 56th and 57th, respectively.

“All of our guys really stepped up and ran good races on a perfect day for racing,” Meinerts said. “Colin continues to pace the team, running another great race, earning himself a medal. Our other guys just need to step up and run a quicker pace. They need to be under 20:00 for our team to be competitive. I know they can do it, it’s just a matter of believing that and going out there and doing it.”

CMB runs at South Hamilton Thursday afternoon.