Williamsburg girls place 4th in deep field

WILLIAMSBURG — If you were looking for the premier cross-country meet in Eastern Iowa on Tuesday, the place to be was the Williamsburg Sports Complex.

A total of 1,011 runner crossed the finish line in the junior high and high school races at the Williamsburg Invitational.

Eighteen ranked teams competed In the varsity races, making a quality field.

Albia’s McKenna Montgomery stole the show in the varsity girls race, blazing a new course record of 18:07.2. Mount Vernon-Lisbon’s Evelyn Moeller also broke the previous record.

Williamsburg’s Channing Becker continued her strong season, coming in fifth in 19:19.9, a season best.

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Just a minute behind Becker was her freshman teammate, Maddie Gorsh, who ran a personal best of 20:22.3 for a 19th place finish.

“I was just trying to run by best and stick with Channing and try to get into the 19s,” Gorsh said. “The competition helped push me a lot.”

Gorsh has improved steadily throughout the season, a pleasant sight for a Raiders’ squad that has its eyes on a trip to state.

“Seeing Maddie step up the way she has is really impressive for a freshman,” Williamsburg head coach Nick Nordheim said.

As a team, the Raiders may have had their best performance of the season, finishing just 20 points behind Class 3A No. 7 Solon. The Raiders came in ranked 16th.

“I thought this was a big step for our girls team,” Nordheim said. “Our top three are running at a really high level, and we are working hard to close the gap after those three.

“Aubree (Wilde) just keeps getting better each meet and could be a big factor for us down the stretch. I thought Ella (Kleinmeyer) and Leighton (Maas) were really solid as well.”

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A South Iowa Cedar League preview between 1A No. 6 Lynnville-Sully and No. 11 English Valleys resulted in the Hawks edging the Bears by 18 points.

“We’ve still got some runners banged up, but I’d say we are heading in the right direction,” English Valleys coach Luke Caster said.

The two teams will battle it out for a conference title in a few weeks, and the Bears will come in motivated.

English Valleys was led by a 30th-place finish from Anna Luers.

Kaylynn Caster ran a personal best of 21:26.5 for the Bears, coming in 37th in the deep field.

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Mount Vernon-Lisbon’s Dawson Scheil conquered the course faster than anyone on the night, winning the boys’ race in 16:04.6. Scheil was one of six top 15 individual runners in 3A in the field.

Williamsburg’s Marcus Pirkl was the top area finisher, coming in 21st in a time of 17:45.2. The freshman has been consistent for the Raiders this season as the lead runner.

The rest of the Raiders’ scorers finished between 18 and 19 minutes.

“The boys looked really good through about the first half of the race,” Nordheim said. “They need to continue to work on holding on to that strong pack. We're making good progress but still need to have some breakthroughs toward the end of the season.”

English Valleys’ Issac Frazier nearly broke 18 minutes, finishing in 18:00.6.

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GIRLS RESULTS

Team Scores

1. Pella 48, 2. Mount Vernon-Lisbon 80, 3. Solon 123, 4. Williamsburg 143, 5. Pella Christian 229, 6. Albia 246, 7. Tipton 251, 8. Clinton 254. 9. Lynnville-Sully 257, 10. English Valleys 275, 11. Bondurant-Farrar 290, 12. West Delaware 301, 13. Bettendorf 304, 14. North Mahaska 333, 15. Carlisle 337, 16. Mount Pleasant 369, 17. Vinton-Shellsburg 438, 18. Davis County 488, 19. Colfax-Mingo 492, 20. Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont 521, 21. Belle Plaine 625

Individual

Top 10 — 1. McKenna Montgomery, 18:07.2; 2. Evelyn Moeller (MVL), 18:16.1; 3. Avery Fedler (Mount Pleasant), 18:55.7; 4. Lizzy VandeVoort (Pella), 19:10.9; 5. Channing Becker (Williamsburg), 19:19.9; 6. Kiersten Swart (MVL), 19:21.6; 7. Carleigh Altwine (Pella), 19:40.7; 8. Ruth Dunham (Pella), 19:41.5; 9. Carryn Sattler (Clinton), 20:01.2; 10. Aubrey Rivers (Clinton), 20:02.1

Williamsburg (143): 5. Channing Becker, 19:19.9; 19. Maddie Gorsh, 20:22.3; 28. Edie Axmear, 21:02.0; 41. Aubree Wilde, 21:42.6; 54. Leighton Maas, 22:22.1; 56. Ella Kleinmeyer, 22:27.8; 62. Graceyn Uhlmann, 22:49.8

English Valleys (275): 30. Anna Luers, 21:04.1; 37. Kaylynn Caster, 21:26.5; 49. Addison Achenbach, 22:12.7; 72. Aubrey Achenbach, 23:13.5; 94. Kaylee Frazier, 24:01.6; 98. Kailor Lown, 24:23.7

Belle Plaine (625): 107. Elyse Jacobi, 24:45.9; 134. Jesse Upton, 27:17.3; 139. Madeline Kaplan, 29:47.3; 141. Elle Jacobi, 30:01.1; 142. Saku Tanaka, 30:11.4

HLV-TC: 136. Paisley Allee, 27:51; 144. Raelene Hawkins, 31:27.7; 146. Aiyla Ray, 32:12.4

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BOYS RESULTS

Team Scores

1. Mount Vernon-Lisbon 40, 2. Pella 55, 3. Bondurant-Farrar 132, 4. Vinton-Shellsburg 158, 5. Pella Christian 193, 6. Tipton 200, 7. Carlisle 205, 8. Williamsburg 238, 9. Lynnville-Sully 241, 10. Solon 266, 11. Clinton 331, 12. West Delaware 387, 13. South Tama 407, 14. Albia 430, 15. English Valleys 434, 16. Davis County 439, 17. Mount Pleasant 439, 18. Danville 508, 19. Waterloo East 536, 20. HLV-TC 606, 21. Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont 608, 22. North Mahaska 609, 23. Colfax-Mingo 622, 24. Belle Plaine 660, 25. Meskwaki 717

Individual

Top 10 — 1. Dawson Scheil (MVL), 16:04.6; 2. Barrett Jesina (South Tama), 16:23.0; 3. Sawyer Feldman (MVL), 16:24.9; 4. Alex Torres (Vinton-Shellsburg), 16:32.6; 5. Ryler Hanson (Bondurant-Farrar), 16:32.7; 6. Kael Streeter (Carlisle), 16:41.1; 7. Benjamin Brinkmann (MVL), 16:43.3; 8. Mason Gaulke (Pella), 16:45.9; 9. Jonah Ebersole (Pella), 17:00.4; 10. Porter Carlton (Pella), 17:05.3

Williamsburg (238): 21. Marcus Pirkl, 17:45.2; 43. Nile Busch, 18:13.9; 45. Colin Reed, 18:18.9; 63. Brevin Zirkel, 18:54.8; 65. Hayes Arwine, 18:56.1; 68. Finn Brummel, 19:01.1; 75. Charlie Koons, 19:13.6

English Valleys (434): 35. Isaac Frazier, 18:00.6; 57. Will Luers, 18:51.2; 83. Evan Koehn, 19:41.2; 124. Dayne Render, 21:33.2; 135. Drake Offerman, 22:41.5; 158. Davis Burdick, 25:58.1

HLV-TC (606): 72. Allan Scott, 19:05.7; 100. Drew Thys, 20:25.9; 137. Remington Huber, 22:44.6; 143. Lance Milton, 23:39.0; 154, Cash Hawkins, 25:07.1

Belle Plaine (660): 117. Devin Timm, 20:59.8; 129. Ian Davis, 22:18.0; 130. Ryker Beal, 22:33.6; 132. Hayden Neuhaus, 22:37.1; 152. Caleb Argo, 24:54.8; 160. Sawyer Neuhaus, 26:20.2

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