July 27, 2024

PCM girls finish third at HOIC cross country

By Newton Daily

Prairie City-Monroe freshman Paige Steenhoek, center, placed third in the Heart of Iowa Conference girls' 5K race at North Polk on Monday. The Mustangs girls also placed third as a team. (Troy Hyde)

ALLEMAN — Prairie City-Monroe’s girls’ cross country team is made up of one senior, one junior, one sophomore and four freshmen.

The Mustangs don’t have a lot of varsity experience yet, but that didn’t stop them from claiming third place in the annual Heart of Iowa Conference meet on Monday.

Freshman Paige Steenhoek was the lone medalist on the day for the Mustangs, but the girls’ team put three runners in the top 12 and scored 83 points to finish third.

Steenhoek was third overall in the girls’ 5K race with a time of 20 minutes, 13 seconds.

Class 3A No. 12 North Polk (51) won the meet with four runners finishing in the top 10. Gilbert (54) was next with three in the top 10.

PCM edged Nevada (89) and Roland-Story (89) by six. South Hamilton (159), Greene County (171) and Saydel (219) rounded out the field.

On the boys’ side, junior Beau Webb led the Mustangs with a 21st place finish. He crossed the finish line in 18:32.

PCM was sixth in the team standings with 164. Class 3A No. 6 North Polk (32) and 3A No. 4 Gilbert (32) tied at the top, but the Comets won the meet with a better sixth finisher.

Nevada (102), Roland-Story (105) and South Hamilton (123) completed the top five and Greene County (172) and Saydel (219) were both behind PCM.

Freshman Riley DeVore (21:39) was 11th in the girls’ race and junior Margo Chipps (21:43) finished 12th. The final scoring runners were senior Klaire Jungling (22:26) in 21st and freshman Jillian Fairbanks (24:01) in 36th.

Freshman Sophia Steenhoek (25:20) finished 41st and sophomore Delaney Baird (26:11) was 44th.

After Webb for the boys were seniors Jason Stafford and Ayrton Breckenridge, who finished 27th and 28th, respectively, in 19:00.

The other two scoring runners were seniors Cody Courtney (20:40) and Cooper VandeLune (20:47) in 43rd and 45th, respectively.

Junior Dalton Moser (20:53) was 46th and sophomore Kyle Sanders (21:09) placed 49th.

There were three ranked runners in the girls’ race. Class 3A No. 26 Liza Schaffer of North Polk won the race in 18:59. Class 2A No. 20 Kylie Tjernagel of Roland-Story was next in 19:58 followed by Paige Steenhoek, who is ranked 26th in 2A.

The boys’ race featured five ranked runners. Class 3A No. 9 Zach Sporaa of North Polk won the race in 16:18. Class 2A No. 9 Quinton Grove of South Hamilton was second in 16:34.