The Aplington-Parkersburg cross country team used last week’s NICL Championships as its final tune up before Thursday’s state qualifying meet in Oelwein.
The top three teams and top 15 individuals will advance to the state meet. In the girls race, Falcon senior Quinlynn Schultz enters with the ninth-fastest time in the field at 20:27. She says she’ll face some familiar competition in Oelwein.
“This was a good preparation meet,” Schultz says. “A lot of our conference teams are going to be at the Oelwein meet to qualify for state, and a lot of other good teams from around the state will be there. And so it was just kind of good for this meet to gauge where I need to be at and see what girls I need to stay with to hopefully get a shot to run in Fort Dodge in a couple of weeks.”
In the boys race, AP’s Ty Luhring has a season-best time of 17:27, which ranks 14th among the field. Head Coach Jonna Junker says Luhring will look for a bounce-back from placing below expectations at the conference meet.
“21 through 30 are honorable mention, so I know he really was really hoping to get up there, and I know he’s not gonna be happy with this with this place and he’s gonna come out next week ready to go,” Junker says. “We’ve already got some strategy and kind of who they need to stick with at districts.”
The meet will start at 4:00 p.m. at Hickory Grove Golf Course.
