Experience, trip to state pushes CMB’s 2008 expectations

BAXTER — With five of their seven runners who competed in the boys state cross country meet last year returning, Collins-Maxwell-Baxter has high hopes for this upcoming season. The expectations are high. The Raiders want a return trip to state and a better than ninth-place finish the squad got last year. “The sky’s the limit for this group,” CMB coach Jerry Meinerts said. “Our goal should be to get a top five finish at state. Once the guys believe that, we’ll have a chance to be a top 2A team.” The top three runners returning from last year are seniors Justin Means, Jon Findlay and Dom Reinhold. The other two runners who competed at state a year ago are senior Shawn Plunkett and junior Nathan Poage. The team captain this season will be Means as Meinerts called him the team’s spark plug. “He is our outspoken leader,” Meinerts said. “He keeps things fun but also makes the guys work hard.” Reinhold and Findlay both love to run and love to compete, according to Meinerts. That should help in guiding the Raiders back to Fort Dodge for the state meet. Findlay spent the summer running, accumulating more than 250 miles for the second straight year. “I think all three of my top runners have a chance to run in the 16:00s this year,” Meinerts said. “They were in the top 50 at state last year and all of them ran in the mid 17:00s.” Meinerts said Plunkett and Poage are much improved and have finished just shortly behind the top three guys. Meinerts expects them to run in the low 18:00s and maybe even crack the 17:00s at some point this year. Other runners Meinerts expects to compete for a varsity spot include sophomores Jacob Ross and Jon Reinhold, freshman Derek Morrison and senior Jon Deutsch, who is a state qualifier in track but has never ran cross country until this year. “We just need to train seriously and stay healthy and we’ll have a shot to compete,” Meinerts said. Meinerts expects PCM to be the “favorite” in the conference and also expects North Polk to be much improved. Last season, CMB was led at state by graduated senior Matt Heidemann. Means, Reinhold and Jon Findlay were separated by just four positions and three serconds. The other graduated senior was Jack Oman. On the girls side, Meinerts lost a lot last year to graduation but does return senior all-conference runner Jen Coughenour. After that, the team is loaded with youth as four freshmen and first-year senior runner make up the rest of the team. “Jen’s a good leader,” Meinerts said. “We need the young girls to copy her. It’ll be tough to compete as a team early, but by the end of the season this group could surprise some people. A good goal for us would be to win a meet at the end of the season.” Gone from last year are Megan Stratton, Monica Madsen, Katie Seals and Nicole Hester. Coming in this year are freshmen Katelyn Findlay, Sarah Galbraith, Allison Moore and Becky Hall. Riley Dawson is the first-year senior runner. “This young group has been running up with Jen a lot,” Meinerts said. “I keep telling them that ‘Jen was an all conference runner, and if they continue to run with her then they have a chance to do some good things.’” The girls team took second in the conference last year. Meinerts expects South Hamilton, Gilbert and North Polk to be good inside the conference and also expects good competition from Ballard. “We need to drop times and get better every meet,” Meinerts said. “They also would like to get second in the conference again.”