OTTUMWA — Colfax-Mingo sophomore Abbey McConeghey won’t crack the Class 1A rankings this season.
That doesn’t seem to bother her at all though.
One week after finishing 37 seconds ahead of No. 15 Cheyenne Shaw of North Mahaska, McConeghey added six other ranked runners to her list of victims during a 1A state meet qualifier that was hosted by Pekin.
McConeghey led most of the way before finishing second to eighth-ranked Jenna Twait of Hudson. McConeghey though punched her ticket to next weekend’s state cross country meet with a time of 20 minutes, 45 seconds.
“She did what we wanted her to do,” Colfax-Mingo co-coach Zach Tomas said. “She got out hard and trusted her training. She gets more and more confidence.”
Twait won the race in 20:31. McConeghey was 7 seconds ahead of No. 14 Elise Emmick of Southeast Warren and No. 9 Kyla Wilkening of GMG. The Tigerhawk sophomore also finished ahead of No. 26 Grace Jorgensen of Hudson, Shaw, No. 17 Caroline Stokes of Denver, No. 30 Remi Duwa of Pekin and No. 24 Natalie Even of Denver.
“We are very proud of her,” Tomas said. “She has overcome a lot to get to this point. This was definitely earned.”
McConeghey was the only Tigerhawk to earn a state berth Thursday.
The Tigerhawk girls finished sixth in the team standings with 143 points. No. 2 Hudson won the team title with 46 points. No. 4 Denver (62) and No. 6 Pekin (79) grabbed the other two team berths. GMG was fourth with 113 points, and Lynnville-Sully placed fifth with 128 points.
Junior Ilia Hostetter placed 33rd in the girls’ 5K race with a time of 24:03.
Senior Danielle Decker finished 38th in 24:41, freshman Crystal Lincoln placed 44th in 25:05 and Daytin Jones claimed the final scoring position in 54th with a time of 26:06.
Junior Delaney Underwood finished 62nd and junior Colbee Cunningham ended up 67th as the two non-counting runners.
“It was our best night, but I can’t fault the effort,” Tomas said. “We haven’t run well in the heat this year and we didn’t run well again today. It was tough. We had a tough field.”
McConeghey was the third individual qualifier under Tomas. Dakota Hostetter qualified three times as an individual and Ilia Hostetter was a state qualifier last season.
The Colfax-Mingo boys’ top finisher was junior Cauy Fitch, who placed 28th in 19:00.
The Tigerhawks were 11th in the team standings, but they were better than a Montezuma team which beat them at the conference the week before.
Colfax-Mingo scored 263 points, which was nine points better than English Valleys and 21 points ahead of the Braves.
Fifth-ranked Pekin won the team title with 67 points. The Panthers were 10 points ahead of eighth-ranked Hudson and 55 points better than No. 7 Denver.
“The goal was to be in the top 10, but the times were great and we were happy with how it shook out,” Tomas said. “We did meet most of our other goals.”
Cyden Fitch was 50th overall in 20:26, Michael Loney was 69th in 21:01, Noah Strohmeyer finished 85th with a time of 21:45 and Nathan Evans placed 92nd in 22:00.
Jarod Nichols (125th) and Avery Lees (130th) were the two non-scoring runners.