The North Central Conference cross country meet was hosted at Maynes Grove on Tuesday.
The Iowa Falls-Alden/AGWSR girls earned a conference runner-up placing with 70 points behind Clear Lake. The girls were paced by top 10 placings by Piper Smith medaling in fourth in a PR of 20:16.7 and Danika Rieks crossing ninth in a season-best 20:55. The IFA/AGWSR boys placed sixth with 147 points. Sam Kirchoff led the way with an 18:35 in 17th place and Hunter Miller in 18:52.5 crossed 21st.
IFA/AGWSR Head Coach Michael Rottink on finishing strong at a competitive meet.
“They ran really well. We were within 10-15 seconds of some of our PRs, and this is not the easiest course for us,” says Rottink. ” We finished really strong and were real competitive, so really proud of the boys. It was good to see our senior Hunter Miller go out with a really good time on this course. Pretty impressed and room for us to build on. Our girls, weren’t at full strength. What we’re really hoping for was to get a solid second place finish behind Clear Lake, they’re kind of the cream of the conference right now. To be able to hold on and still get second place, we had a real great finish from Piper Smith. She’s been our number two and she medaled for us at number four. Danny Rieks was just out of the medals at number nine and had a real strong finish. We’re looking forward to what this is going to bring for us next week.”
The Hampton-Dumont-CAL girls placed fifth with 129 points, as two Bulldogs ran for top 20 times, led by MacKenzy Valley in a PR of 21:37 (13th) and Lily Hambly in 22:47.5 (19th). The H-D-CAL boys placed seventh with 159 points. Conner Miller was the front runner with a 18:38.6 in 19th place.
H-D-CAL Head Coach Traci Moorehead on turning in best times of the year on a big stage and home course.
“The NCC really has some really great competition. They ran well, super proud of our kids,” says Moorehead. “Lots of them are looking at 10 days ago, we ran here for our home meet. I don’t know the stats, but I would adventure to say 20 of the 22 kids ran better tonight than they did 10 days ago. It just makes all the kids feel good, finishing the season, running their best times.”
Both teams will turn their attention to next week’s state-qualifying meets on Wednesday, October 23. The locations will be announced later this week.
