Newton boys open XC season with fifth-place finish

MARSHALLTOWN — Newton’s boys cross country team begins the 2022 season ranked 15th in Class 3A.

The Cardinals were not where head coach Steve Weeks wants his team to be after the season opener on Thursday. But the first meet rarely goes as planned.

The state-ranked Cardinals finished fifth in an eight-team field at the 14th annual Marshalltown Early Bird Cross Country Invitational at Marshalltown Community College.

“The results weren’t what we wanted, but the first race of the year never is,” Weeks said. “Comparing times to last year’s start, we’re actually in a pretty good place.”

Newton and Pella Christian both scored 123 points, but the Cardinals took fifth because of a better sixth score.

Newton’s top six runners were in the first 33 positions and Jesus Murillo’s 33rd-place finish in his varsity debut moved the Cardinals up the standings.

Landon Menninga, who starts the season ranked 30th in 3A, was 12th overall with a time of 18 minutes, 30.3 seconds.

The next best five Cardinal finishers were separated by only 43 seconds.

“We lost some of our top runners last year, but with that we’ve actually gained a new strategy,” Weeks said. “We are now a pack-running team.

“If they can consistently lower their times by a minute and all of the varsity is 18:30s and better, we have a great shot to make it back to state.”

Class 4A No. 17 Southeast Polk won the meet with 38 points. Class 2A No. 12 Grundy Center/Gladbrook-Reinbeck finished second with 76 and the rest of the top five included South Tama County (78), Mason City (90) and Newton (123).

Pella Christian (123), Marshalltown (150) and Webster City (242) completed the field. Waterloo East had an incomplete team.

Southeast Polk’s Carson Owens won the boys’ 5K race in 16:05.3. South Tama’s Tommy Tyynismaa was the runner-up in 16:36.2.

Four runners finished the race in faster than 17 minutes and nine were in under 18 minutes.

Leo Friedman was Newton’s second runner. He finished in 23rd with a time of 19:03.7.

Presley Arnold (19:26.7) and Christian Buchli (19:26.9) also made their varsity debuts and finished 28th and 29th, respectively. Collin Buchli (19:36.9) was 31st and Murillo (19:47.2) finished 33rd.

Lance Zaabel’s first varsity run was clocked in 21:13.7 and he was 49th overall as a non-scoring runner.

Javin Doland won the boys’ JV race in 19:34.1.

“If you add in our top finishing JV runner, then the pack gets bigger,” Weeks said. “I am excited for what we have in front of us.”