Mt. Pleasant, IA- The High School Cross Country season has struggled to put together a consistent string of meets due to Mother Nature’s oscillation between extreme heat and torrential downpour. The latter might have caused muddy conditions at the Mt. Pleasant Invite, but it did not deter the runners from plodding through the grass and providing tremendous efforts.
Varsity Girls’ Race
In the first varsity race of the night, the small schools dominated the meet with the first four finishers being from Class 1A or Class 2A. The race did not start that way, as Avery Fedler of Mt. Pleasant led the early charge and commanded the pace for the first lap.
Yet, WACO’s Josie Dykstra and Mid-Prairie’s Kendal Landstrum managed to keep the pace and soon supersede the Panther. Moreover, Dykstra caught a second wind at the end of the race, as the Warrior rushed past Landstrum to take the overall best time of the meet with a mark of 19 minutes and 17 seconds. Even the junior did not have an explanation about the final lunge,
“Honestly, I don’t know how I did it, but it felt amazing. I knew that when I was going through the mud here, I was like, okay, I want to get out of this. I kind of sped up a little on the straightaway. And I just knew that like back there on the hill, I was like, I can use this. I’m good at hills. So I used that and I just flew the rest of the way.”
Mediapolis’ Avery Dietz continued her alacritous climb up the leaderboards, as Dietz grabbed the bronze medal with a time of 19 minutes and 42 seconds with Brooklyn Stultzman of Mid-Prairie following behind in 4th place. Aubree Bunnell of Central Lee was the next of the small school runners to cross with a 5th place time of 20 minutes and 27 seconds.
Although she did not finish with the overall fastest time, Mt. Pleasant’s Avery Fedler did claim the best mark of the larger school runners with a time of 20 minutes and 9 seconds. Her teammate, Quintrie Lee, finished on the podium with a third place time of 20 minutes and 35 seconds.
Danville’s KoraRae Stott touted a 10th place finish with a time of 20 minutes and 58 seconds. Unsurprisingly, Mid-Prairie walked away with the small school title, accruing just 30 points compared to Central Lee’s 69 points.
For our other local runners, New London’s Irelynn Kelly finished 80th overall and Winfield-Mt. Union had Baylie Heacock take 85th.
On the large school side, Fairfield’s consistency with Alex Jo Steward (4th place), Ava Jones (6th place), and Kensley Fligg (8th place) all nabbing a spot inside inside the top 10 led to the team trophy, as the team snuck past Fort Madison with 48 points to the Bloodhounds’ 55 points. Mt. Pleasant finished in 3rd place.
Washington was led by Emma Horak, who took 5th place with a time of 21 minutes and 9 seconds.
Varsity Boys’ Race
There was an initial clump of runners, but the drama started to really ratchet up at the tail end of the race when Max Swartzentruber of Mid-Prairie and Washington’s Parker Tschantz made a mad dash toward the finish line.
The result was a difference of two-tenths of a second, as Swartzentruber managed to slip past the Demon to win with a time of 16 minutes and 40.003 seconds versus Tschantz’s time of 16 minutes and 40.210 seconds.
Not too far off the pace was Mediapolis’ Will Schmidgall, who raced around the final corner to a time of 17 minutes. An exasperated Schmidgall was happy to be leading his pack,
“Well, let’s just say I wasn’t expecting the mud over there. It really took a toll on my legs. Every time we went around, my legs just got stuck in there. It was hard to recover, but I pulled through and tried to finish out as strong as I could, so I’m just happy with the way I finished. I gave it all I had.”
Right behind Schmidgall was the freshman sensation for Central Lee, Drake Newton with a third-place time of 17 minutes and 4 seconds. Caden Crozier in 8th place and Caedon Newton’s 11th place finishes helped the Hawks grab the small school title with 50 points, as Mediapolis took second place with 55 points.
For our other local schools, WACO’s Hunter Wilson finished in 13th place for the small schools. Winfield-Mt. Union’s Brayden Cline and Elijah Chancellor of Danville finished in 46th and 49th place overall, respectively. Job Reighard of New London claimed 68th place overall.
Aided by Ethan Hotchkiss and Jack Shepherd each finding a place inside the top 10 for Washington led the a victory for the Demons with a collection of 46 points.
Fairfield took second place as Elijah Hampton (8th place) and Brice Boatright (10th place) each grabbed a spot in the top 10. Mt. Pleasant’s Logan Fedler, an 8th grader, snatched 12th place with a time of 18 minutes and 9 seconds, while Ben Leishman took 14th place for the Panthers.
Mt. Pleasant boys’ head coach Mitch Anderson, who was without Silas Hulett for the race, was pleased with his team’s performance,
“I was very proud of the way they were able to step up with his absence. And I think their performances, their times are reflecting that. I’ll have to go back through the results, but I think they all stepped up and did an excellent job with that.”
Up Next
Mediapolis will compete at the Grayhound Invite on Thursday, September 24th. On September 29th, Washington will host Fairfield and WACO, while Mt. Pleasant and Danville will compete at the Williamsburg Invitational. Coach Anderson knows that his team will be able to overcome the adversity of the schedule,
“Yeah, well, you really do plan your schedule around your races. So, when you lose one of those, you definitely feel that. But I think it’ll take the whole season. But I think by the time we get to the end, we’ll finally be where we know these kids can be.”