March 29, 2024

Three Cardinal girls run in the medals at Norwalk

Newton girls take 3rd, boys finish 8th

NORWALK — Two ranked Class 3A teams were the class of Monday’s Norwalk Invitational girls’ varsity division. Newton High’s Cardinal girls captured third with 104 points and Prairie City-Monroe’s girls were fourth with 118 points.

Ballard, ranked No. 5 in 3A, won the girls’ team tile with 35 points. Pella, a fellow Little Hawkeye Conference team with Newton, was second with 39 points.

In the boys’ varsity division, 3A 11th-ranked Bondurant-Farrar was led to the team title by 3A No. 12 ranked Drake Van Baale. Bondurant-Farrar scored 44 points and Van Baale was second in 17 minutes, 20.5 seconds. He was beaten by 3A 23rd-ranked Jonathan Lansing of Cedar Rapids Xavier in 17:12.6.

Newton’s boys finished tied with host Norwalk with 189 points, lost the tie-breaker to land in eighth place. Norwalk, another LHC team, was seventh and PCM’s Mustangs took ninth with 235 points.

The Cardinal girls placed three runners in the top 15 — all claiming medals — in the 5K race. Junior Rachel Rhoads ran ninth in 21:33.6 followed by freshman Ashay Malow in 11th in a personal-best time of 21:45.1. Junior Clare Muckler was 15th in 22:21.1.

“Getting third is a great accomplishment and is a testament to how well the girls competed. It was great to see that pack (Rachel, Ashay, Clare) working together,” Newton girls’ head coach Rachelle Tipton said. “They have been training well together and can keep making each other better. Tessa looked strong today and had a great finish.”

Senior Tessa Keeton finished 32nd with a season’s-best 23:59.6 and junior Abbie Barr was 37th in 24:24.1. Freshman Willow Oswalt took 42nd in 25:54.3 and senior Original Tesfay was 43rd in 26L06.2.

The Cardinal boys got a 21st-place run from junior Adam Hunter with a time of 18:50.1. Senior Dylan Main got nipped at the finish by Norwalk’s Austin Brenizer, who had a time of 19:42.2, to Main’s 19:42.4 for 37th and 38th, respectively.

Sophomore Luke Zaabel was right behind those two to place 39th in 19:45.2. Seniors Jake Callaghan and Chad Nolin finished 45th and 46th, respectively, in 20:12.2 and 20:16.4.

Freshman Anthony Bestell placed 58th in 22:43.8. Senior Blake Robson was 61st in 23:59.9.

“The heat and wind added to loner times than usual,” Newton boys’ head coach Steve Weeks said. “This was the first meet of the season where we actually had a junior varsity teams score.”

Newton was ninth with 282 points in the junior variety boys’ race. Freshman Trent Hamand was 95th in 24:00, sophomore Addision Dunwell was 106th in 24:21.2, sophomore Noah Cook was 123rd in 24:49.7, freshman Dakota Gooden was 125th in 26:30.1 and sophomore Izaak Miller was 144th in 34:10.3.

The Newton girls’ junior varsity finished sixth with 159 points. Sophomore Tes Schuster was 35th in a personal-best time of 27:30, senior Jordan Banfield was 36th in 28:18, sophomore Jillian Waits was 55th in 32:58.7, freshman Abigail Adkison was 56th in 33:01.3 and sophomore Sadie Steinbach was 59th in 41:54.5.

“Tes had a great race today. She had a determined look on her face and kept picking people off throughout. Jillian had another solid race with a great kick at the end,” Tipton said. “Overall, today was a good meet. We still have some things to work on but excited coming in to the next two meets.”

Newton’s cross country squads compete at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday at Fort Dodge.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at
641-792-3121 ext. 6535
or jsheets@newtondailynews.com