Three straight: CMB girls win again

JEFFERSON — The Collins-Maxwell/Baxter cross country teams have competed in three meets this season, and the Raider girls claimed their third championship Thursday.

The Class 2A No. 9 Raiders traveled to Spring Lake State Park and best second place by 59 points. The CMB boys finished ninth in the 14-team field.

A total of seven CMB runners claimed medals on the night with 171 points.

The five scoring runners in the girls race all medaled. Junior Heather Jessen finished fifth, sophomore Brenna Thomson was sixth, junior Ashlee Johnson placed 10th and sophomore Shasta Moody was 13th. The final medalist was sophomore Lauren Ratliff, who placed 17th.

It was the third meet of the season where the Raider girls had a different No. 1 runner. Johnson was the best at Iowa State, Thomson was the top finisher at Central and Jessen, a state qualifier in 2016, returned to the top of the lineup Thursday.

“Our team showed great effort tonight,” CMB coach Jerry Meinerts said. “Three of our top four runners have missed some time this week at school because of illnesses, so we were not running at full strength.

“To have eight girls in the top 30 out of 122 runners was a great sign to see.”

Sophomore Ian Thomson and freshman Logan Berg earned medals for the boys’ team. Ian Thomson was ninth overall, while Berg finished in 13th. Junior Carter Fricke just missed a medal, finishing 24th overall.

“Our top three boys ran extremely well,” Meinerts said. “I’m very pleased to see those guys keep dropping their times. There were great runners in this race tonight, so to see those three in the top 25 is a great sign.

“The gap between our No. 3 and No. 4 was just too much tonight. Our other guys have got to realize that they can go faster, they just need to get out that comfort zone and really start pushing the pace.”

Jessen’s fifth-place finish was clocked at 21 minutes, 17 seconds.

Brenna Thomson was 11 seconds behind in sixth, while Johnson’s time was 21:45. Moody ran a 22:56 and Ratliff’s time was clocked at 23:08.

Freshman Holly Jessen was 22nd overall in 23:40, senior Winter Brown was 23rd in 23:42 and senior Anna Jones was 28th in 24:04.

“These girls really just keep running well together and really pick up the slack when one of them isn’t running their best,” Meinerts said. “Our goal now is to get everybody back healthy and get ready to run at Lynnville-Sully next week, where we get to run against 1A No. 2 Pekin.”

CMB won the meet with 40 points. Panorama was second with 99 points and West Marshall (100), Adair-Casey/Guthrie Center (102) and Roland-Story (156) rounded out the top five.

Class 1A No. 13 Colo-NESCO was sixth with 157 points.

The Raiders boys had two runners top 18 minutes for the first time this season.

Ian Thomson finished ninth in 17:39, while Berg was 13th in 17:50. Fricke’s 24th-place finish was clocked at 18:38.

Junior Noah Rhoades was the Raiders’ fourth finisher in 66th as he crossed in 21:01. Sophomore Josh Bruntz was the final counting runner in 67th with a time of 21:06. Freshman Carter Davis (79th) and senior Brady Ross (102nd) rounded out the varsity lineup.

“We were without our No. 4 runner tonight,” Meinerts said. “Max Van Maanen has some lower leg injuries. Hopefully he’s able to heal up quick and back to our No. 4 spot.”

South Hamilton, which is ranked fourth in 2A, won the meet with 59 points, AC/GC scored 70 points in second and Ogden was third with 123.

Panorama (143) and Des Moines Christian (151) rounded out the top five. Roland-Story (156) also bested CMB by 15 points.