Mt. Pleasant, IA- The Mt. Pleasant cross country teams, led by Mitch Anderson and Lyle Murray, put together a successful season on the trails, which included a trio of All-Conference and State Qualifying runners and a top 25 finish at the 2025 State Cross Country Meet.
To officially put the exclamation mark on the season, the Panthers held their banquet last night and passed out the season awards.
Panther Girls’ Team
There’s no secret that Mt. Pleasant boasts a talented but very young team with two freshmen and four sophomores. That inexperience can be detrimental to a team’s success, unless you have a strong leader, and the Panthers had just that in their lone senior Nelle Peterson. Aptly, Peterson earned the Linnie Cornick Heart Award.
Peterson’s best run of the year was 23 minutes and 13 seconds, which ranked third on the team. The best finish of the season for the Panther squad was 2nd place at the Mediapolis Invite where Peterson took 15th place, her best of the season.
A sophomore that was consistently turning in season best times was Molly Baker and for her effort she was given the Most Potential Award. Her season trajectory was a coach’s dream. Baker started the season running around the 26-minute mark and by the end of the season turned in her personal best time at the State Qualifier at 23 minutes and 49 seconds. A two-minute improvement throughout the season is highly impressive.
For the second consecutive year, the Panthers had a freshman qualify for the State Meet. Avery Fedler had a lot of hype surrounding her rookie season at the high school level and the team MVP delivered.
Fedler was ranked as high as #3 in Class 3A for the Iowa Association of Track Coaches (IATC) and won not only the Southeast Conference (SEC) meet but the Panthers’ State Qualifying meet as well. Her best time was at the SEC meet as she turned in a time of 18 minutes and 42 seconds. The freshman claimed 24th at the State Meet in Fort Dodge.
Fedler talked about what she was working on to improve her performance heading into her first high school experience,
“I think one thing I’ve really worked on is building my mileage. So, in middle school I probably wasn’t running more than 10 miles a week, and I’ve built it up to like 30 miles a week, 10 miles is not ideal for any kind of mid distance runner, so building my mileage is definitely the key factor in my success.”
Quintrie Lee qualified for her second consecutive State Meet as well as she finished in 3rd place at the SEC meet to finish with All-Conference honors. Haylay Lydolph and Summer Winget also improved as the season progressed.
Panther Boys’ Team
Similar to the girls’ team, the boys’ team touted one senior to lead a roster that consisted of six underclassmen. With the help of Payton Wilson’s leadership, the Panthers grabbed 3rd place at the SEC meet. The senior also saved his best run for the State Qualifier as he finished with a time of 19 minutes and 17 seconds. For his hard work, Wilson earned the Panther Award.
Ben Leishman’s best time as a freshman was 20 minutes and 40 seconds. The sophomore cut nearly two minutes off his best time this season with a mark of 18 minutes and 41 seconds, which was good enough for 21st at the SEC meet. This evolution meant Leishman took home the Most Improved Award.
Last but certainly not least, the team MVP went to junior Silas Hulett. Coach Anderson had a simple way of describing Hulett’s performance at his home meet that would be the groundwork for the rest of the season, “monster race…” He turned in a time of 17 minutes-flat to win the large division.
He would parlay that victory into an All-Conference honor at the SEC meet, then a gigantic 9th place finish at the State Qualifier, which saw him cut off another 16 seconds from his run at the Panther Invite to finish with a season best time of 16 minutes and 44 seconds. Hulett would claim 53rd place at the State Meet with a time of 17 minutes and 3 seconds.
This is in spite of Hulett not running on the cross-country team until last year. He lives out exactly what he hopes to pass down to the next generation of runners,
“With enough work and enough dedication, anything is possible, and you just have to be willing to fight through the pain and power [through] and run your race and have a little fun sometimes because you don’t always run your best race. You know, you don’t always do your best all the time. Sometimes you mess up, but maybe that mess up is just to be better the next time, you know.”
Helping round out the team was Jeremiah Aguma, Max Heater, Lucas Hurd, Khanon Koller, Anthony Krzyranowski, Clark Peterson, and Oliver Rynders, who all improved throughout the season, as they all turned in sub-26 minute times.