March 28, 2024

CMB girls sweep small-school division at Central; PCM, L-S go 2-3

PCM, L-S finish 2-3 in team standings

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PELLA — After another team championship Saturday, junior Ashlee Johnson and sophomore Brenna Thomson both said the Raider girls cross country team may have a different leader in every race this season.

Johnson won the first meet of the season at Iowa State, and it was Thomson’s turn Saturday at the annual Central College Dutch Invitational.

The Class 2A No. 9 Raiders brought home four individual medals and the small-school team title after another dominating performance.

Thomson was ninth overall and first among small-school runners on the day, but four teammates came in 2-3-4-5 as CMB swept the small-school scoring with 15 points.

“I love this team. We push each other,” said Johnson, who crossed the finish line in 13th overall with a time of 21 minutes, 45 seconds. “We race during practice. None of us like losing. Heather (Jessen) and I just had bad days today. I think we could have a different No. 1 each time we race.”

Prairie City-Monroe and Lynnville-Sully also competed in the small-school division. The Mustangs, led by freshman Klaire Jungling, finished 32 points behind CMB in second, while the Hawks were third with 74 points. BGM, Montezuma and Pella Christian did not have enough runners for a team score.

“I was excited to see how well our girls ran at Pella, especially since we think we are heading back to Pella at the end of the season for the state- qualifying meet,” CMB coach Jerry Meinerts said. “We took some extra time warming up today, really checking out the course.

“It was nice seeing our top four girls get in the top 20 (all classes) and earn some tough medals. Ten of our girls also ran season best times on this course.”

There was one high school girls race. The top 20 finishers earned medals. Runners were eventually split up into classes for team scoring purposes.

Thomson’s time of 21:29 was tops among small-school runners. Pella’s Tessa Roorda won the overall title with a time of 20:14.

“It just depends on the day really,” said Thomson about the Raiders’ finishing order this season. “We push each other to go even harder. We all want to win so that’s a good thing. We work well as a team.”

Johnson was 13th overall, while sophomore Lauren Ratliff (17th) and senior Heather Jessen (18th) also earned medals. Sophomore Shasta Moody was fifth overall in the small-school race but fell shy of a medal.

“I went out way too quick,” Johnson said. “Brenna was out front so at that point, I just started thinking about the team, and how we could win the team race.”

It was the second straight team title for the Raiders, who also won the small-school division title at Iowa State back on Aug. 25.

Jungling was the first Mustang to cross the finish line. She was sixth among small school runners with a time of 23:43, while sophomores Paytan Schut (23:53) and Megan Townley (24:06) were next in seventh and eighth, respectively.

“She has come up to the front pack slow and steadily in practice,” PCM coach Eric Karr said of Jungling. “I talked to her after the race, and I told her to keep the confidence. I don’t care if she’s a freshman. She is allowed to be our fastest runner if that’s what she is.”

PCM did not have services of senior Jayci Vos, who missed the meet due to a concussion. Junior Baylee Smith and senior Rachel Stafford both competed under the weather, too.

Vos passed her concussion test but now is going through the protocol. Smith went home sick from school Friday but still wanted to run.

“Every team has things like that they deal with so it’s not an excuse,” Karr said. “I think we are ahead of where we want to be. Practices are looking amazing. It’s only a matter of time before it starts to show up in a meet.”

Lynnville-Sully’s top runner was freshman Abby Gruver, who crossed the line 10th among small school runners in 24:19. Junior Christine Nikkel was 11th in 24:27.

Gilbert won the large-school team title with 39 points, while Pella (57) and North Polk (69) finished second and third, respectively.

Pella is ranked No. 1 in 3A, while Gilbert came into the meet ranked fourth in 3A. North Polk is a “team to watch” in 3A, too.

The final two varsity finishers for the Raiders were senior Anna Jones and freshman Holly Jessen. Jones was ninth overall in 24:11, while Jessen was 3 seconds ahead of senior teammate Winter Brown in 13th. Jessen finished in 24:34.

“I was glad that we ran with the big schools as well because our girls really wanted to run against some of the 3A schools in our conference to see how we stack up against them,” Meinerts said.

The rest of PCM’s varsity included junior Ellie Steenhoek, sophomore Kristin Ives, Smith and sophomore Morgan Uhlenhopp. Steenhoek was 12th in 24:28, Ives came in 15th in 25:04, Smith finished 17th in 25:20 and Uhlenhopp crossed the line in 24th with a time of 26:24.

Ives, new to the sport, was PCM’s second-best finisher at ISU last week. Karr wants to emphasize to his runners that “sometimes you just have your best time.”

“She said she didn’t have it today, and that’s fine,” Karr said of Ives. “If she gave it her best, then I am OK with that. That’s how cross country works sometimes.”

The rest of the Lynnville-Sully’s varsity, after Gruver and Nikkel, were sophomore Emily Van Gorp, junior Hailey Scandridge, junior Haley Breeden and junior Lydia Akergren. Van Gorp was 21st overall in 25:36, Scandridge crossed in 27th with a time of 26:49 and Breeden was 28th in 27:03. Akergren ended up 32nd with a time of 27:26.

“When we look at times today compared to Tuesday at Williamsburg, we’ll see some who were faster today and some who weren’t,” L-S coach Darin Arkema said. “I want them to consider how the race went, how they felt racing, where they were strong or felt weak, where they placed relative to opponents we’ve previously raced against, etc.

“By looking at the big picture, this will help them find positives from each race as well as what to keep working on, while also building confidence and motivation for the season. I’m confident with the work I am seeing from this group, that they will continue to see improvement.”

Area runners finished in the first 17 small-school positions. The first non-area runner to cross was Montezuma senior Alexis Maki, who was 18th in 25:22.