PCM catches Davis County at home meet

MONROE – Prairie City-Monroe’s girls cross country team achieved Thursday what the Mustangs couldn’t at their last meet.

A week after Class 2A No. 10 Davis County beat PCM by eight points for first place at the Lynnville-Sully Invitational, the Mustangs, unranked, earned a bit of revenge at the Prairie City-Monroe Invitational at Gateway Golf Course. PCM, led by senior Rachel Peter’s second-place performance, edged out Davis County by 14 points for fourth place at the team’s home meet.

With more established teams like Ballard, who won both the boys and girls team titles at the meet, and West Marshall, PCM head coach Eric Karr said his girls team set its sight on realistic goals, such as catching Davis County.

“I’m really proud of the team. They all stepped up. You tell them to beat a Davis County girl, they’ll go and pass them,” Peter said. “We kind of hinted at it. Me and our second runner, Rachel (Stafford), we talked about, ‘Let’s go out and get Davis County today.

“It’s pretty cool we can beat a team ranked (No. 10) in the state, especially for not even having a team last year.”

Peter, who finished in 17 minutes, 12 seconds and roughly 18 seconds behind race winner Abby Kohut-Jackson of Ballard, led the local talent in the girls race. Colfax-Mingo’s Kennedi Hostetter placed 17th, followed by Collins-Maxwell/Baxter’s Heather Jessen and Winter Brown in 19th and 20th and Lynnville-Sully’s Cori Rice in 21st.

PCM benefitted from finishing closely ahead of Davis County runners throughout the race. Stafford came in two spots ahead of Davis County’s Addie McKee, PCM’s Baylee Smith placed six spots ahead of Davis County’s Madeline Nelson and Morgan Novak finished two seconds before Sophie Rotole.

The Mustangs totaled 131 points. Davis County had 145.

“If you go back to the Lynnville-Sully meet, that’s the team we were chasing,” PCM head coach Eric Karr said. “You start looking at things of what can we do, and it’s just a little improvement by each person.”

CMB and Lynnville-Sully also had a tight team finish, as the Raiders edged the Hawks by 18 points for sixth in the 12-team field. CMB’s Anna Jones placed six spots ahead of Hawk junior Shelby Foster and Chantel Maxwell finished five spots before Kasiah Ehresman.

In the boys race, Collins-Maxwell/Baxter’s Mark Deutsch continued his strong senior season with another second-place finish. Two days after winning the West Marshall Invitational, the CMB senior ran near the front of the race throughout and crossed the finish line in 17:38.

Deutsch, who is unranked, finished 17 seconds ahead of Davis County’s Zach Hougland in third, who’s ranked No. 10 in 2A.

“It’s really no big deal to me,” Deutsch said of not being ranked after winning or placing second in every meet he’s ran in this season, “but if there’s a rated kid who’s ahead of me in my race, I’m like, yeah, I’m going to go try and beat him.”

CMB performed well as a squad, too, placing third with 105 points in the 14-team field. Colin Thomson finished eighth individually for the Raiders, and CMB head coach Jerry Meinerts said Thomson is starting to close the gap between himself and Deutsch.

Running a few hundred yards from his backyard, PCM freshman Blaise Winegardner ran well again for the Mustangs, finishing fourth. Winegardner, who crossed the finish line in 17:59 and has paced his team at every meet this season, said running so close to his house, which he could see from the finish line, added extra comfort on the course.

“I think at the start of this one I was somewhere around top 20 and as the race progressed, I made my way through everybody and tried to just stay up with the top three runners,” he said.

Lynnville-Sully also had a runner in the top 10. Canyon Kuhlmann finished 10th in 18:58. Both the Hawks (11th) and PCM (10th) finished in the bottom half of the team standings as the two squads had the two biggest point differentials between their first-and second-place runners of all teams at the meet.

Colfax-Mingo placed 14th with 385 points and again were led by freshmen Jonathan Jacobs (76th place) and Alex Lewis (77th).

Contact Sports Writer Ben Schuff at (641) 792-3121 Ext. 6536 or at bschuff@newtondailynews.com.

2014 PCM Invitational

Girls 4K

Colfax-Mingo: 17. Hostetter, 18:28.38; 31. Iva Moore, 19:27.69; 34. McKinzie Tjaden, 19:54; 104. Cassie Craig, 22:43.19;

Collins-Maxwell/Baxter: 19. Jessen, 18:35.76; 20. Brown, 18:41.33; 50. Stephanie Twohey, 20:35.49; Jones, 20:42.15; 61. Maxwell, 20:46.09; 67. Chasity Moody, 21:01.36; 69. Whitney Spencer, 21:03.34; 80. Veronica Condon, 21:37.19; 103. Sara Rogers, 22:37.45; 108. Courtney Clapper, 23:14.76; 116. Elizabeth Jones, 23:47.40

Lynnville-Sully: 21. Rice, 18:42.95; 36. Madison Rasmusson, 20:03.91; 42. Haley James, 20:19.61; 64. Foster, 20:53.45; 66. Ehresman, 20:59.79; 81. Kristine Jaennette, 21:40.02; 95. Alexis Hardenbrook, 22:23.23; 122. Rebecca Morningstar, 24:39.40; 126. Haley Breeden, 25:00.02

Prairie City-Monroe: 2. Peter, 17:12.51; 24. Stafford, 18:54.53; 27. Smith, 19:11.55; 49. Kiara Kapplemann, 20:32.42; 54. Novak, 20:39.32; 62. Mallory Bell, 20:49.30;

Boys 5K

Colfax-Mingo: 76. Jacobs, 22:05.53; 77. Lewis, 22:05.80; 139. Will Dunsbergen, 24:44.38; 142. KC Huffman, 24:55.54; 144. Cameron Lantry, 25:03.52; 171. Jacob Frier, 28:53.82

Collins-Maxwell/Baxter: 2. Deutsch, 17:38.43; 8. Thomson, 18:54.87; 30. Eric Hall-Flooden, 20:13.92; 31. Max Van Maanen, 20:14.33; 44. Carter Fricke, 20:49.94; 54. Calvin Jones, 21:07.02; 58. Brock Johnston, 21:10.63; 75. Evan Bianchi, 22:05.19; 80. Drake Caple, 22:09.97; 128. Curtis Jones, 23:50.14; 157. Brady Ross, 26:23.29; 165. Austin Hallett, 27:34

Lynnville-Sully: 10. Kuhlmann, 18: 58.08; 71. Lucas Jones, 22:02.09; 81. Connor Fraker, 22:14.95; 133. Jared Bassett, 24:11.95; 166. Kordell Mueller, 27:44.81; 170. Brett Maasdam, 28:33.28

Prairie City-Monroe: 4. Winegardner, 17:59.96; 50. Chris Ellens, 20:57.78; 88. Trent Howard, 22:33.63; 106. Brady North, 23:02.46; 111. Caleb Peter, 23:13.24; 114. Rory Van Gorp, 23:16.96; 122. Andreas Vargas, 23:31.71; 123. Braden Phifer, 23:33.42; 141. Brad McClellan, 24:47.08; 154. Mark Bruxvroot, 26:00.64; 155. Max Van Gorp, 26:01.07; 175. Jon Heath, 31:37.64