Prep Cross Country- The Iowa Track Coaches Association released their 6th edition of the high school cross country team rankings and two of our local teams have ventured into the top five in their respective classes.
Class 3A
Fort Madison and Washington will make for a very interesting conference showdown on October 17th as both their boys’ and girls’ programs find themselves ranked within the top 20.
Looking at the boys’ teams first, Washington holds the advantage after moving up in the top 10 to #8, while Fort Madison also surged up two spots to #18. The Demons have finished in 1st place as a team in three straight meets, including a 23-point victory over the Bloodhounds at the Mt. Pleasant Invitational.
Tyler Alderton, who is ranked individually, and Andrew Rees headline the Washington squad, while Fort Madison is led by the duo of Riley Tripp and Jacob Shottenkirk.
On the girls’ side, Fort Madison took a huge leap from #11 last week to #3 this week after back-to-back meet victories at Mt. Pleasant and Anamosa. At Anamosa, Avery Rump took 8th place but more importantly the top five runner for the Bloodhounds finished in the top 16.
Washington remained at #20 with Iris Dahl leading the charge for the Demons. At Mt. Pleasant, the Demons finished only 11 points away from the Bloodhounds.
Class 2A
A 2nd place team finish at Burlington launched Mediapolis back into the top 20 to round out the list after a week of being unranked. Will Schmidgall, the #13 runner in Class 2A, anchors the Bulldogs as he has finished in 2nd place at the last two meets.
Class 1A
A trio of teams from the Southeast Iowa Super Conference find themselves ranked in the top 20 for the boys’ team rankings. Danville jumped up from 18th to 5th, Van Buren County, fresh off a victory at Burlington, fell back two spots to 15th, and Columbus hurdled a couple teams to be ranked 9th this week a week after being ranked 12th.
On the girls’ side, the Danville girls’ team claimed 3rd place as a team at the Mt. Pleasant Invitational, which knocked them back two spots in the top 20 from 15th to 13th.
Next Rankings
The IATC will release a new round of individual rankings next Monday, October 7th, while the team rankings will come out on Tuesday, October 8th.