English Valleys girls win at Montezuma

MONTEZUMA — The English Valleys girls cross-country team continued its solid running and stellar finishes in the 2023 cross-country season by taking first place in Montezuma Thursday.

The Bears outpaced second-place South Tama by 33 points.

EV’s Addison Achenbach (21:27), Aubrey Achenbach (21:34) and Kaylee Frazier (22:18) finished one, two, three to lead the Bear assault.

Kailor Lown was 11th in 24:04, and Mallory Koehn was 16th in 24:36 to put all five scores in the top 20 runners. Jaidyn Rugg finished in a time of 27:41

Iowa Valley’s Hannah Ryan crossed the line in 12th place with a time of 24:08. The Tigers were also represented by Kathry Kilgard (26:17), Grace Ryan (27:57) and Brooklyn Kilgaard (28:14).

Elle Jacobi and Hailey Manley ran for Belle Plaine and crossed the finish line in 30:29 and 38:33 respectively.

Boys

Gage Heyne of English Valleys dominated the boys field to take medalist honors in a time of 17:19. With only two runners in the field — Jonathyn Downing the other, with a time of 23:42 — EV was not a factor in the team race.

South Tama took the boys’ team title with 34 points, followed by North Mahaska, 64 points and HLV in third with 72 points.

Montezuma was fourth and Belle Plaine fifth.

HLV finished with four runners under the 20-minute mark and two others under 22.

Paced by Payton Roth (19:01) and Brody Sternhagen (19:17), who finished 11th and 12th, Nolan Pirkl finished 15th in 19:24, and Austin Vanhamme’s 19:36 was good for 16th.

The Warriors also ran Ethan Licht (21:08) and Drew Thys (21:42).

Luke Eichhorn was the first Plainsmen across the line, in fourth place overall, with a time of 17:53. Maddox Purk was next, in 19:21, followed by Harry Singh in 21:53, Phillip Drahos in 22:30, Ian Davis in 23:54 and Sawyer Neuhaus in 25:56.

Representing Iowa Valley was Ayden Hollister, who finished with a time of 21:24 and Derek Bral crossing the line in 27:26.