English Valleys girls run away with championship

Addison and Aubrey Achenbach finished two, three in last Tuesday’s South Iowa Cedar League Conference cross-country meet to lead English Valleys to a decisive first place finish.

In a sport where the lowest score wins, the Bears were twice as good as the next closest team.

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“The girls competed well and are running their best at the right time of the year,” said Bears Coach Luke Caster.

“This group is fun to coach because they are willing to work hard and push themselves to succeed. I am extremely proud of their accomplishments.”

English Valleys put all five scoring runners in the top 15 to post a team score of 31. Lynnville-Sully was second with 62 and Montezuma third with 68. Colfax-Mingo and Iowa Valley rounded out the top five.

Caster is understandably proud of his young team. “Freshmen Addison and Aubrey Achenbach finished second and third for us and set the tone as sophomore Kaylee Frazier was just behind them, coming in seventh,” he said.

“Freshmen Kailor Lown (12th) and Mallory Koehn (15th) closed out our top five,” Caster said. “Senior Jaidyn Rugg helped push back some of the other teams' scores and ran a good race for us”.

Addison Achenbach ran a 20:48 with Aubrey only two seconds back, finishing in 20:50. Frazier finished in 21:37, Lown 23:40 and Koehn 24:13. Rugg completed the course in 26:50.

Iowa Valley’s Hannah Ryan finished 13th in a time of 23:44 to lead her team. The rest of the Tiger runners were Kathryn Kilgard (24:31), Hannah Smolik (26:43), Brooklyn Kilgard (27:09) and Grace Ryan (27:26).

Belle Plaine’s Hailey Manley crossed the finish in a time of 41:18.

The girls compete next in the state qualifying meets. English Valleys will travel to Iowa City while Iowa Valley and Belle Plaine head to Eldora. All meets start at 4 p.m.