March 29, 2024

Cardinals run in Cardinal Invitational

Image 1 of 4

On a bright sunny, warm and breezy day, Newton High’s cross country athletes ran their home course with confidence in Tuesday’s 41st annual Cardinal Invitational. They ran the 5K races on Westwood Golf Course along with 11 other teams.

Newton’s girls placed fifth in the varsity race with 156 points. Des Moines Roosevelt, ranked No. 11 in Class 4A, was the team champion with 41 points in a field of 11 teams. Southeast Polk was second with 51 points.

Class 3A’s 11th-ranked Grinnell finished third with 74 points and 3A No. 8 Pella was fourth with 82 points. Four Little Hawkeye Conference teams — Grinnell, Pella, Newton and Oskaloosa — went 3-4-5-6. The Cardinals edged Oskaloosa by two points as the Indians scored 158 points for sixth.

In the boys’ varsity race, it was all Class 3A top-ranked Dallas Center-Grimes, another LHC team, with 33 points for the team victory. Grinnell, which is ranked No. 4 in 3A, was second with 66 points and Oskaloosa was third with 94 points. Newton finished ninth with 246 points in a field of 10 teams.

Capturing the individual titles for Tuesday’s Cardinal Invitational were Class 3A second-ranked Mary Blanchard, a sophomore from Grinnell, and 3A 15th-ranked Malachi Hornbuckle, a senior from Nevada, in 19 minutes, 49 seconds and 17:01, respectively. DCG’s boys placed six runners in the top 10 spots.

Newton’s top performance of the meet was turned in by junior Rachel Rhoads. Rhoads claimed the 15th-place medal in the girls’ race with a finishing time of 21:54.

Junior Clare Muckler ran 23rd in 22:44 followed by freshman Ashay Malow in 28th at 23:30. Senior Tessa Keeton placed 43rd in 25:30, senior Original Tesfay was 47th in 24:56 and sophomore Jenna Smith took 56th in 27:32.

“It was another warm one today, but the girls came prepared,” Newton girls’ head coach Rachelle Tipton said. “They competed well and had great pushes at the finish. Most everyone ran faster than Oskaloosa last week.”

Leading the Cardinal boys was junior Adam Hunter, who finished in 21st in 18:45. Sophomore Luke Zaabel was 48th in 20:20 followed by seniors Dylan Main, 20:27, and Chad Nolin, 21:01, in 50th and 59th, respectively.

Freshman Anthony Bestel, freshman Trent Hamand and sophomore Addison Dunwell finished in 68th, 69th and 70th, respectively, in 23:36, 25:08 and 25:09.

“We ran alright tonight, but with only nine current runners, we get a huge point spread in our scoring portion of varsity,” Newton boys’ head coach Steve Weeks said. “It is still a team goal to get all varsity runners under the 20-minute mark so we need to keep plugging away to meet that.”

The Cardinal junior varsity girls placed sixth with 190 points. Freshman Willow Oswalt led the way, taking 52nd in 27:38. Senior Liz McVey placed 57th in 28:28 followed by senior Jordan Banfield in 65th at 29:33.

Freshman Abigail Adkison was 95th in 34:19 and sophomore Jillian Waits was 99th in 35:39. Sophomore Sadie Steinbach finished 111th in 46:20 and senior Bethany Risius was 112th in 47:34.

“Some girls run at Indianola Thursday, others Saturday in Minneapolis, then we are in to the last part of the season,” Tipton said. “We are starting to hit our stride, but it would also be great to see those fall temperatures.”

Running in the boys’ junior varsity race were senior Blake Robson and freshman Dakota Gooden. Robson placed 99th in 24:08 and Gooden ran 145th in 29:34.

“This coming week is a hectic one as we get ready for the junior varsity running at Indianola on Thursday and varsity traveling to the Griak in the Minneapolis on Saturday,” Weeks said. “Starting next week we should be running at our full force of 12 runners and start placing better where we know we can be.”

Newton High’s teams compete at 4:30 p.m. Thursday at Indianola. Varsity runners will compete at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in the Roy Griak Invitational meet in St. Paul. Minn.

The Newton Berg Middle School cross country teams also competed at home Tuesday. Newton was third in the boys’ field of nine teams and the girls were sixth. The middle school races were 2-miles.

Here are the Newton results for the middle school races:

Boys

5. Treycen Garton, 8, 13:10

13. Hunter Kennedy, 8, 13:56

14. Emmanual Roy, 8, 14:10

15. Derek Beiner, 8, 14:11

27. Ryan Nook, 8, 14:42

37. Jared Smith, 7, 15:06

93. Collin Buchli, 7, 17:09

96.Caden Menninga, 7, 17:15

145. Brody Fuller, 7, 19:53

146. Jacob Nichols, 720:00

167. Keyton Doland, 7, 23:09

Girls

19. Lauren Zaabel, 8, 16:04

22. Grace Benson, 8, 16:26

51. Kelsey Church, 8, 18:11

53. Morgan Stalzer, 8, 18:13

66. Kate Muckler, 7, 19:13

75. Kathryn Van Manen, 8, 19:44

99. Zoie Danks, 8, 21:18

105. Skyler Gooden, 7, 21:43

108. Heather Perry, 8, 21:48

119. Amor Hilburn, 8, 23:11

134. Keila Sue, 8, 28:09