Cross-country heating up

The 2025 cross-country season is about to get a whole lot more local, but area teams did travel a bit for a trio of meets this weekend.

In Ottumwa, it was Van Buren County that flexed its muscle, grabbing first and second at Pekin’s Wildwood XC meet.

The Warriors scored 52 points to win the girls’ team race, beating Ottumwa by six for the title Pekin scored 91, and Fairfield finished 95 to put three Union area teams in the Top-5.

Individually, the day belong to Chloe Glosser, who won the race with an impressive time of 18 minutes, 10.10 seconds.

VBC took second in the boys’ race. Louisa-Muscatine won the meet with 46 points, but the Warriors were right behind them, with a score of 55, for second. Pekin scored 86, for third, and Fairfield scored 110, for fourth.

Pekin’s Cole Millikin led the way, winning the meet in 16:38.30.

The Mt. Pleasant girls didn’t have enough for a team score at Pella, but freshman Avery Fedler continued to show her potential, finishing third at the event, with a time of 18:49.8.

Fedler finished behind two Pella runners, Marissa Ferebee and Elsie Brenneman, who are the Top-2 ranked runners in Class 3A. Fedler is now ranked fourth.

Also falling into the Top-15 was Quintrie Lee, who finished 15th, in 21:02.7.

The Mt. Pleasant boys took 12th as a team, scoring 303 points.

Silas Hulett was 23rd, with a final time of 17:27.4, to lead the Panthers.

Washington, meanwhile, took fourth and fifth at the Bob Brown Invitational at Iowa City.

The Demon girls scored 116 points, for fourth place. Iris Dahl was the Demons’ top runner, finishing second, in 20:02.04, while Kora Miller took 15th, in 21:44.75.

The Washington boys scored 134 points, for fifth. Andrew Rees was second, in 16:33.08, and Parker Tschantz took 27th, in 18:35.07.