Pekin cross country still team to beat in ?12

What do you get when you cross the defending high school champs with last season?s junior high winners?

Pekin head cross country coach Davis Eidahl hopes the answer is a third straight state championship by season?s end.

The Panther high school girls brought the Class 1A title to Packwood the last two seasons, and the eighth-graders did the same, repeating as junior high cross country champions after winning as seventh-graders.

Together, the two teams enter 2012 ? head coach Davis Eidahl?s 50th season ? with the sole goal of earning the elusive three-peat. The Panther varsity team was most recently state champs in 2008, 2010 and 2011, with a runner-up finish coming in 2009.

In order to add another title to the ever-growing banner, they?ll have to do it without a pair of twins who became the faces of the program over the last four seasons. Celsey Conger and Brenna Conger, four-time state qualifiers and three-time state champions, are gone, and the Panthers also lost Brandi Millikin to graduation.

However, two-time state champions Maleaha Earnest, a senior, and junior Sam Wright return for another go-round and will fill in at the top of the lineup. Senior Monica Cooley and sophomore McKenna Gambell return from last year?s state championship squad, as well.

?These four girls are who the team will be built around,? Eidahl said.

Hannah Robison, a junior, could also make an immediate impact after missing last season due to health issues.

?Robison, who did not run last year ... but did run on the 2010 championship team, returns and has looked good so far,? Eidahl said.

In addition to those five runners, Pekin will receive contributions wherever it can from its talented ninth-grade class.

Gwynne Wright leads the seven-runner class and earned the individual state title the past two years in middle school. Fellow freshmen Sloan Reighard, Taylor Lock and Payton Lock also had top-10 finishes at the junior high championships and will look to make an immediate impact.

The Panthers also will face a much improved Class 1A field, said Eidahl, but no one is better at getting his runners up to speed than the 2011 National Cross Country Coach of the Year.

?At last year?s state meet, the next five teams behind Pekin return all of their runners, but by the end of September, do not count the Panthers out,? he said.

Like the Panther girls, the boys? squad has found itself ranked in the preseason poll, squeezing its way into the No. 15 spot.

The boys finished 2011 at the state cross country meet in Fort Dodge ? their first appearance in seven years ? and hope to do so again.

However, they?ll have to do it with five new bodies. The team lost four to graduation: Stratton Bond, Tim Murry, Colton Dunning and Aaron King. A fifth ? Cade Millikin ? went out for football this fall.

Chase Earnest, the top runner for Pekin at last year?s state meet, appears more than ready for the challenge. Earnest earned an 87th-place finish in Fort Dodge and appears hungry for even more success in his final season. Clayton Essary, a junior, also returns from last year?s state-qualifying run.

The rest of the team will be made up of newcomers this fall, including freshman Austin Fariss, who was a two-time state champion in middle school. Juniors Joey House and Chris Little, sophomore Avery Bennett and ninth-grader Joel Swanson round out the roster.

?It is a small number, but it only takes five to score, and Pekin should have good success this fall,? added Eidahl.

Once again, the Pekin cross country teams will be hosting their fair share of meets this season. They kick it all off Aug. 30 with their annual season-opener in Ottumwa.