Newton boys finish fourth in tough field at Grinnell

Lynnville-Sully senior James Gruver and Newton junior Landon Menninga have similar strategies on the cross country course.

Gruver likes to get out fast and see how it goes from there and Menninga tries his best to start fast and go at that pace for as long as he can.

Both area harriers earned medals at the Grinnell Invitational on Tuesday.

Gruver led all area runners with a 12th-place finish and Menninga’s 15th-place tally led the Cardinals to a fourth place team finish.

“I’m happy so far. I think I am picking it up pretty well,” Menninga said about his season to this point. “I’m not sure what my time was yet, so I don’t know whether to be excited or mad.

“I need to work on my race pace though. It could be better than where it’s at. I need to work on some hills, too. We have some hilly courses coming up.”

Menninga’s time of 17 minutes, 46.9 seconds was a season best. Two Cardinals ran season-best times and the rest of the varsity lineup posted career-best marks.

Newton scored 130 points in fourth, edging Grinnell (140) by 10 points. Class 3A No. 3 Pella won the meet with 32 points and the rest of the top five included 3A No. 9 Carlisle (63) and South Tama County (98).

Benton Community (167), 2A No. 19 Williamsburg (169), Lynnville-Sully (205), Knoxville (224) and Cedar Rapids Xavier (262) completed the 10-team field.

Pella put its five scoring runners in the top 13 and Carlisle featured six in the top 20.

“Fourth place at this race is very misleading,” Newton boys cross country coach Steve Weeks said. “Both Pella and Carlisle are ranked in the top 10 of 3A and South Tama is a solid squad and it surprises me they’re not ranked yet either. Many of our guys ran season bests today if not personal records.”

The top 15 finishers in each varsity race earn medals. Gruver and Menninga were the only medalists from the area.

Gruver, who is ranked 15th in 1A, finished 12th in a season-best time of 17:34.5.

“I was trying to run with the first 10 Pella kids and tried to get as many of them as I could,” Gruver said.

Class 3A No. 4 Chase Lauman of Pella won the boys’ 5K race in 15:58.5. Class 3A No. 8 Tommy Tyynismaa of South Tama was the runner-up in 16:12.1.

The field included six ranked runners.

“Tonight was the third meet in eight days to start the competitive season,” L-S head cross country coach Darin Arkema said. “Most of the schools here were 3A so we were up against some good competition.”

For Newton, finishing after Menninga was Leo Friedman. He was 24th in a season-best 18:20.8.

Javin Doland finished 27th in 18:42.1, Collin Buchli was 31st in 18:47.4 and Christian Buchli was the final scoring runner in 33rd with a time of 18:50.9.

Jesus Murillo (19:16.3) and Lance Zaabel (20:20.7) were the non-scoring runners in 39th and 60th, respectively.

Doland, Murillo, Zaabel and the Buchli brothers all posted career-best times.

“So far every meet this year has been non-stop progress,” Weeks said. “All five scorers on varsity were in the 18s or better. I’m proud of how we ran tonight, but we still need to see time drops if we’re to reach our team goals.”

Menninga feels like the Cardinals are getting closer to the goal times they have for running a strong pack in the postseason.

“We’ve been trying to get that pack together. We were spread out way more last year,” Menninga said. “But we looked at it and from what we’ve figured out, we’ve got a pretty tight group and if we can get our times down to about 18:30s, we can make another push for state. That’s what we are aiming for.”

Three Hawks were in the top 40. Zach Morningstar finished 25th in 18:26 and Hendrick Lowry was 36th in 19:04.3.

The other two scoring runners were Ethan Dunsbergen (22:44.3) and Evan Fikse (25:04.7) in 66th and 69th, respectively. Will Conover (27:49.9) finished 70th.

“(Gruver) took about 10 more seconds off his season-best time from Saturday to run a mid 17,” Arkema said. “(Morningstar) was very consistent again, running a mid 18:20. (Lowry) wasn’t quite as quick as Saturday, but another low 19 is still a strong run for him.

“(Fikse) was over 30 seconds faster tonight than the Pella meet. Will knocked a few seconds off his season-best time.”

The Hawks ran against Pella on the Dutch’s home course a few days earlier and Gruver closed the gap on Pella’s Noah Schuknecht from 18 seconds to 14 seconds.

Gruver has led the Hawks in every meet so far, but he loves having Morningstar and Lowry at the top of the lineup with him and all three runners push each other in practice.

“It helps having those guys around,” Gruver said. “They help me with pace, and we push each other to be better all the time.”

Notes: Asher Wood led the Newton JV in 25th and his personal-best time of 20:13.8 would have been good enough for the varsity on Tuesday. … Weeks said Kenny Skinner-Havens and Gentry Swarts also ran personal-best times in the JV race. … Newton did not have varsity regular Presley Arnold for the race. “He’s overcoming an issue but should be back soon,” Weeks said.