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Washington Evening Journal
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Demon XC makes history; Lee represents Panthers
Washington sends both boys and girls squads to state for 1st time, MP freshman gets final spot
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
PELLA — Every spot matters in a state-qualifying cross-country meet. On Wednesday evening at Pella Sports Park, that rang true times 10.
As it turned out, every single stride mattered for the Washington girls. The Demons made the Class 3A state meet by just one point, finishing at 96 total points, while Southeast Conference champion Fort Madison collected 97.
“All week, we said every person counted,” said Demon senior Lauren Horak. “We knew it was going to be close.”
Washington was led, as usual, by junior Iris Dahl, who crossed the finish line in fifth place, coming across in 19 minutes, 14.68 seconds. The next four scorers were all from the senior class.
Kendall Hinrichsen had the highlight of the day for the Demons. The first Washington senior across the line powered past Fort Madison’s Mara Smith, edging her out for 20th place by just five hundredths of a second. Without that pass, the Demon girls would have finished fourth.
“I fought as hard as I could,” Hinrichsen said. “I did whatever it took to beat her at the end.”
Horak wasn’t far behind, finishing one spot behind Smith, in 22nd. She beat out Lauren Watson of Bondurant-Farrar by six hundredths of a second.
Fellow seniors Quincy Griffis and Angeline Anderson finished 24th and 25th respectively. Angeline Anderson took 29th, and Emma Horak finished 32nd.
The girls weren’t the only Demons who qualified for this weekend’s state meet. The Washington boys had a strong day, scoring 71 points to take second as a team.
“We worked together and finished real strong,” said Tyler Alderton, one of two seniors on the varsity seven. “It was really good to see the team really strive.”
Alderton crossed the tape in third place, finishing in 16:29.11. Andrew Rees, who had beaten Alderton for the Southeast Conference title one week prior, finished fifth, with a time of 16:31.53.
“It was a good race,” said Rees. “It was hard as usual, but it was fun to see everyone perform well.”
The Demon boys saw a big bounce back performance from Sawyer Tschantz, who followed a tough race at conference with a 12th-place finish, crossing the tape in 16:58.05.
“I felt like I was mentally stronger,” Schantz said. “I was better mentally prepared for this meet, and I just ran it a lot better than I did the last one.”
Parker Tshantz was the next Demon scorer, finishing 24th overall. Ethan Hotchkiss rounded out the scorers with a 27th-place finish. Teag Miller finished 47th, and Jace Sanders, the Demons’ other senior, took 49th.
The only other Union area Class 3A qualifier was Mt. Pleasant’s Quintrie Lee, who showed every spot mattered by scooping up the very last individual qualifying spot.
Lee, a freshman, finished the girls’ race in 17th-place. Due to all seven Pella runners getting into the automatically-qualifying Top-15, two extra spots went through, which pushed Lee to Fort Dodge.
Lee crossed the tape in 20:18.96, over eight-seconds faster than Fort Madison’s Jordyn Marshall, who took 18th.
“It was rough,” said Lee, describing her push to the finish. “I kind of wanted to just walk, but then I was like, ‘You already came this far. You might as well continue it.’”
Lee will join Washington and the rest of the Class 3A girls in the first race of the weekend, on Friday at 10:30 a.m. The Class 3A boys will follow that race, at 11:15 a.m.
