March 28, 2024

Smock headlines area harriers at North Polk

L-S, C-M compete in tough field at North Polk High School

ALLEMAN — Greenlee Smock used a late kick to claim another victory, Olivia Norrish raced to her best time ever and three Lynnville-Sully boys finished in the top 20 at the North Polk Invitational on Monday.

Smock won the girls’ 5K race and Norrish was 10th to lead the L-S girls to fourth place and the Hawks boys were fifth.

Colfax-Mingo also competed and the girls were sixth in the eight-team field, while the boys finished ninth in the nine-team field.

“Coming off Homecoming week into a Monday meet, I wasn’t sure what our energy levels and focus were going to be tonight,” L-S cross country coach Darin Arkema said. “It’s our farthest travel to a meet so far so I was curious to see how we would come out looking.”

Smock, who is ranked 19th in Class 1A and was voted Homecoming Queen a few days prior, used a kick with about 1,000 meters to go to pass 3A No. 27 Liza Schaffer of North Polk and finished with a personal-best time of 19 minutes, 21 seconds to win the girls’ race.

“After the first half-mile, it was a two-person race and for the next two miles I kept challenging Greenlee to be bold, make a move, get in front and push the pace,” Arkema said. “Finally, with about a thousand meters to go, Greenlee pulled in front and changed gears to separate herself.

“The result was a PR time and a commanding win that should give her tons of confidence she can race to those fast times and belongs up near the top of 1A girls.”

Norrish also registered a personal-best time of 21:45 and placed 10th. Kendra Fikse (24:36) in 37th, Corrina Rozendaal (25:44) in 45th and Brooke Conover (26:13) in 55th were the final scoring runners.

Laura Fikse (26:46) finished 62nd as a non-scoring runner.

“The girls all took off well, aggressive to get better early positioning and keep contact,” Arkema said. “Olivia had a very determined look, and I just sensed from her she was confident she could be fast and be in the upper tier of the race. She passed six girls during the second mile and never looked content to just run with who she was with or where she was at.”

Shae Wilkins highlighted Colfax-Mingo in 21st. She finished in 22:59.

McKenna Pleima (25:02) was 40th, Lilyan Hadsall (26:18) placed 56th, Bianca Lane (26:22) took 58th and Devan Chadwick (26:38) finished 61st as the other scoring runners.

Mallory Sipma (31:45) was 81st as the lone non-scoring runner for the Tigerhawks.

Schaffer was the runner-up in the girls’ race with a time of 19:50. That led 3A No. 9 North Polk to the meet championship. The Comets were 2-3-4-7 and finished with 28 points.

Nevada (69), Bondurant-Farrar (73), Lynnville-Sully (110) and Des Moines Lincoln (130) capped the top five and the rest of the field included Colfax-Mingo (168), Des Moines Christian (182) and Ankeny Christian Academy (191).

In the boys’ race, 3A No. 2 North Polk finished with a perfect score after all five scoring runners went 1-2-3-4-5.

Class 3A No. 3 Zach Sporaa won the race in 15:36, while 3A No. 13 Max Sporaa was the runner-up in 16:38.

Lynnville-Sully was led by Zach Morningstar in 11th. His time was clocked in 17:33. Hendrick Lowry finished 12th in a personal-best 17:37 and James Gruver was 19th in 18:09.

Lowry ran faster than 18 minutes for the first time in his career.

“Zach just keeps on a roll, churning out one solid performance after another,” Arkema said. “Hendrick never gave much space behind Zach and that’s exactly how those two were challenging each other last week in practice.”

Gruver, who is ranked 22nd in 1A, returned to the lineup after missing almost a month of competition due to injury.

“The meet tonight for James was about going and seeing how the ankle felt, how things responded and seeing where he was at,” Arkema said. “I was proud of him for battling and working through things to race the whole way, and his time of 18:09 was still very respectable. We would have loved to see where he could have been tonight without the injury.”

After Gruver was Ethan Dunsbergen (21:37) in 86th and Evan Fikse (26:57) in 130th. Will Conover (28:58) was a non-scoring runner in 134th.

Nevada (74), Bondurant-Farrar (106), Des Moines Lincoln (110) and Lynnville-Sully (158) completed the top five and Boone (183), Des Moines Christian (190), Ankeny Christian Academy (191) and Colfax-Mingo (225) rounded out the nine-team field.

Colfax-Mingo was led by Harrison Rhone, who finished 28th in 18:39. Josue Rodriguez (20:12) was 59th, Xavier Woods (20:40) placed 69th and Tony Buenrostro (21:10) came across the finish line in 76th.

Gage Byal (21:32) was the final scoring runner for C-M in 83rd and Owen Ament (21:34), John McGill (21:46), Carter Gibson (21:47), Austin Lane (22:22) and Seth Brant (23:46) all were non-scoring runners in 84th, 89th, 90th, 99th and 114th, respectively.