Baxter’s Gliem, C-M’s Wilkins lead area harriers at Tigerhawk Cross Country Invitational

COLFAX — After competing on the Newton girls cross country team last season, sophomore Lauren Nook decided to be a manager for the Cardinals this fall.

But with the squad taking just its junior varsity to the Tigerhawk Cross Country Invitational on Thursday, Nook decided to put her running shoes back on.

That gave the Cardinals enough runners to obtain a team score and Newton finished sixth in the six-team field at Kelly Fields. And Nook was the team’s top finisher.

“I’m proud of how they all ran tonight,” Newton girls cross country coach Rachelle Tipton said. “Lauren is managing the team this year but decided to jump in a race and did awesome.”

Baxter’s Zoey Gliem and Colfax-Mingo’s Shae Wilkins were the top finishers from the area and both earned the county’s lone medals in the girls’ 5K race.

Baxter did not have enough runners for a team score, while Colfax-Mingo tied for fourth but finished fifth because Saydel had a sixth runner for the tiebreaker.

“Across the board, we are so much better right now than we were at this point last year,” Colfax-Mingo head cross country coach Zach Tomas said. “We are young, but I’m impressed with where they are. I’m excited to see what they still can do.”

Grand View Christian won the team title with 26 points after the Thunder put four runners in the top six. Class 1A No. 5 Maddy Childs led the way for GVC in second with a time of 19 minutes, 1.24 seconds.

Class 1A No. 14 Woodward-Granger was second with 54 points. Fourth-ranked Eva Fleshner won the girls’ race in 18:43.47.

The rest of the six-team field included Collins-Maxwell (59), Saydel (118), Colfax-Mingo (118) and Newton’s JV (151). Baxter, Clarke, Colo-NESCO and North Mahaska all had incomplete squads.

The distance between Childs and the third-place finisher was more than 3 minutes. The top 25 finishers in both varsity races earned medals.

Gliem led all area runners in 10th place, finishing in 23:04.9. Emie Tuhn just missed a medal for Baxter, finishing 26th in 24:54.32.

Wilkins of C-M was 12th in the race in 23:22.88. McKenna Pleima was 30th in 25:48.73, Devan Chadwick finished 38th in 26:39.74 and the other two scoring runners were Bianca Lane (27:37.61) and Mallory Sipma (31:43.13) in 42nd and 52nd, respectively.

“We’ve dropped a ton of time since that first meet. The kids seem to be hitting their groove. I was really happy tonight,” Tomas said. “Third meet and third medal for Shae. She seems like a different kid right now. She’s figuring things out as a sophomore, but we need her to get out a little faster because she finishes really well.

“McKenna is starting out well but needs to have more at the end. She also is new and doesn’t know how to run these races yet. I’m impressed with where she’s at right now.”

Nook led Newton’s JV in 39th with a time of 27:05.6. Alexis Dirksen was 46th in a personal-best 29:22.7, Cameron Sharp finished 48th in a personal-best 30:25.73, Aryssa Hinderberger placed 49th in a personal-best 30:26.44 and Carol Sander was 50th in a personal-best 30:57.68.

“Alexis was in the zone tonight and looked strong and focused,” Tipton said. “It was fun to see the other three pack up and push each other. Aryssa set her PR at Colfax last year and did it again tonight, even with the new location, and gave a good push at the finish to cement it.”

Notes: Baxter head cross country coach Dennis Vaughn was not available for comment because he was out of town attending a family wedding. … Grand View Christian won the event’s traveling trophy, which goes to the school with the lowest total score from its two varsity teams. Only teams with two full squads are eligible to win the traveling trophy.