Cross Country Showed Up At Grinnell Meet
For a small school, Montezuma’s Cross Country has shown that they can hang with the big kids (schools). It helps to have a full squad of runners on the course competing. At the Grinnell meet, the junior high team got their first chance of the season to toe the line.
Starting off the meet was junior high running a mile and a quarter. This was a good test of fitness for the young runners. For many, this was their first long distance race. Some standout performers included 8th graders, Makenna Johannes and Jack Erselius. Both ran strong races and have already shown great improvement from last season.
A junior high runner to watch is 7th grader, Ellen Cook. This year she is participating in both volleyball and cross country. This means that she is balancing between the two sports causing her to limit when she is able to practice for each. She led the team already in her first meet by finishing in the top 15 out of the field of 114 individuals.
High school girls brought some more season bests and all time bests. The course was flat and fast, and the weather was hot and humid making for a good meet to continue to prepare for more difficult meets down the road.
Big personal bests came from sophomore, Beka Teumer, and juniors Alyssa Cline and Katie Probasco. By big personal bests, we’re talking a whole 70 seconds for Probasco!
The team was down one (senior, Carissa Vanzee) due to illness. Varsity came away with a 9th place finish out of 14 teams, none of which were 1A schools.
High school boys included some exciting finishes. Junior, Brydon Henning won the 100m dash at the end of the race by a fraction of a second to an Ottumwa runner. He was moving! Another exciting finish was from freshman, Colton Benson. This was his first ever long distance race and he had a runner from Lynnville-Sully gaining on him with 300m to go. Benson was able to dig deep for a kick to hold his lead.
Results
Junior High Girls (114 total individuals)
15th Ellen Cook 8:42
17th Alivia Cline 8:44
30th Makenna Johannes 9:08
41st Camryn Brennan 9:30
42nd Aja Kapayou 9:31
44th Lydia Singleton 9:36
46th Ashlee Eilander 9:38
94th Hayley Burnett 11:22
100th Catelynn Coffin 11:30
6th out of 12 teams
Junior High Boys (148 total individuals)
15th Jack Erselius 7:41
22nd Carter McKee 7:58
49th Bryson Stockman 8:32
102nd Jayden Ross 9:55
112th Jusiah Wetering 10:18
9th out of 11 teams
Varsity Girls (94 total individuals)
21st Elise Boulton 21:41
38th “MJ” 23:15
46th Mia Boulton 23:54
61st Carmen Klos 25:00
65th Beka Teumer 25:19
74th Haley VanDerHart 26:40
92nd Alyssa Cline 29:24
9th out of 14 teams
Varsity Boys (104 total individuals)
67th Brydon Henning 20:26
69th Brayden Stockman 20:31
102nd Zach Templeton 26:27
103rd Colton Benson 27:13
No team score (must have 5 runners)
JV Girls (102 total individuals)
80th Katie Probasco 32:49
89th Sadie DeJong 34:23
92nd Madelyn DeJong 36:01
No team score (must have 5 runners)
JV Boys - Montezuma did not run
Next up: the high school runners will compete on September 12th at the Colfax Mingo golf course. The full team will all race again on Tuesday, September 17th at English Valleys.
UPDATE: The Colfax Mingo meet has been cancelled due to weather. Montezuma will replace this meet with one on Thursday, September 26th at Moravia. More information to come.
