Washington Evening Journal
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English Valleys dominates cross-country meets
By Matt Bryant, Hometown Current
Sep. 25, 2023 9:11 am
BROOKLYN — While several area schools lined up Sept. 18 in Brooklyn for the BGM Cross County Invite, two teams ran away with it. Literally and figuratively.
Girls
The English Valleys girl’s squad had the top three finishers and all five scorers in the top 10. This led to a super-low total team score of 19, 39 points better than runner-up North Tama. Iowa Valley finished third with 72 points.
Addison Achenbach, Aubrey Auchenbach and Kaylee Frazier crossed the line one, two, three for the Bears, all within 30 seconds of each other.
Addison’s medalist time was 23:34. Rounding out the scoring for English Valleys was Kailor Lown in sixth and Mallory Koehn in seventh.
Iowa Valley’s Hannah Ryan crossed the finish at number nine with a time of 27:35. Rounding out the Tiger scoring was Kathry Kilgard in 11th, Brooklyn Kilgard in 14th, Grace Ryan 18th and Hannah Smolik 20th.
Boys
On the boys side, in what is believed to be the first time in over 10 years, HLV took home a team cross-country title. The Warriors posted a final score of 38, a full 60 points better than runner-up Belle Plaine.
Brody Sternhagen paced the HLV team with a fourth-place finish and a 21:10 time. Not far behind for the Warriors, Austin Vanhamme, Payton Roth and Nolan Pirkl who finished six, seven, eight, respectively.
Rounding out HLV’s scoring was Drew Thys in 13th.
Belle Plaine’s Maddox Purk led the Plainsmen with a time of 23:14 and a ninth-place finish. Harry Singh (14th), Sawyer Nuehaus (23rd), Phillip Drahos (24th) and Ian Davis (27th) rounded out the scoring.
English Valleys’ Greg Heyne earned overall medalist honors by breaking the 20-minute mark with a time of 19:29. Jonathyn Dowing finished in 20th for the Bears.
Iowa Valley’s contingent included Ayden Hollister, who placed 12th in a time of 24:03, and Derek Bral in a 28th place.
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