State-ranked Lynnville-Sully scores runner-up finish at Pleasantville

PLEASANTVILLE — There wasn’t a team in the field that was going to challenge Class 2A No. 3 Chariton at the Pleasantville Invitational on Monday.

The Chargers were simply too good after placing all five of their scoring runners in the first seven positions and scoring 19 points as the meet champion.

But Class 1A No. 12 Lynnville-Sully knew it could compete with the rest of the field, and the Hawks responded with a runner-up finish on a hot day at the Pleasantville Country Club.

The races were pushed back to help counter the unusually hot temperatures.

Colfax-Mingo was led by Sullivan Wilkins, but the Tigerhawks placed 12th in the 14-team field.

“The boys had a tough 2A Chariton team to contend with, but the door was open for them to race and compete as best they could with them and fight for being the top 1A team,” Lynnville-Sully head cross country coach Darin Arkema said. “Chariton was dominant as I expected, but the guys were 30 points ahead of 3A Saydel, 42 better than 2A Grand View Christian and more than 100 points better than the next 1A team in Martensdale-St. Marys.”

Lynnville-Sully scored 72 points in second. Saydel (102), Grand View Christian (114) and Martensdale-St. Marys (180) also were in the top five and the rest of the field included Montezuma (196), Wayne Community (200), Interstate 35 (226), Clarke (235), Pleasantville (286), Lamoni (306), Colfax-Mingo (308), West Central Valley (313) and Southeast Warren (330).

Class 2A No. 4 Lucas Anderson of Chariton won the boys’ 5K race in 16 minutes, 16.01 seconds.

Class 2A No. 9 Cy Stuart was the runner-up in 16:27.13. The Chargers went 1-2-3-6-7 to win easily.

Class 1A No. 30 Colton Alberts of Lynnville-Sully was fourth in 16:46.06 and Wilkins of Colfax-Mingo place eighth in 17:01.93.

The other scoring runners for the Hawks were Blake Wilmesmeier (17:39.71) in 11th, Madden Gunsaulus (18:08.81) in 15th, Sam Terlouw (19:07.03) in 22nd and Evan Arkema (19:14.69) in 24th.

Ethan Dunsbergen (19:17.5) placed 25th and Keegan Schnell (19:40.08) took 30th as non-scoring runners.

“The guys have really done a great job this year of getting up and getting in the race at the start, yet for the most part, aren’t going crazy or being silly running harder than they can sustain and paying the price later,” Arkema said.

Benjamin Faidley (24:11.16), Willie Fitzgerald (24:25.03), Ryan Moore (26;13.95) and Asher Knutson (30:37.65) were the other scoring runners for Colfax-Mingo in 83rd, 87th, 99th and 121st, respectively.

Milo Knutson (32:54.29) was a non-scoring runner in 126th.