Panthers edged by Union for state title

FORT DODGE ? Heading into Saturday?s state cross country meet, Pekin had one goal on its mind ? a second state title in as many years.

Last year?s 1A champ Panthers, running in 2A this year, fell just three points short of that goal but will gladly accept the runner-up finsish. Union-LaPorte City defended its No. 1 ranking they?ve held since the first meet of the season and posted its third straight Class 2A by edging Pekin 57-60.

?The girls were disappointed when they foundo out they got second, but after a while, it set in what they had accomplished,? said Pekin head coach Davis Eidahl. ?The girls gave everything they had, and that?s all you can ask.?

The Panthers will be back down in Class 1A next season but the goal will remain the same. While playing the ?what-if? game, the times Pekin ran Saturday would have been more than enough for the 1A title. In the 1A race, the Panthers would have defeated the champ Nodaway Valley by a score of 44-145 and also ran well enough to have come away with the 3A title.

?When you have four girls in the top 12, you?ll win most of the time, but we?ll just regroup and try again next year,? Eidahl said.

Those top four girls will all be returning for Pekin in 2010 including sophomore Celsey Conger who led the Panthers with a seventh-place overall finish in a time of 15:26. Kaitlin Spilman (11th, 15:40), Brenna Conger (15th, 15:50) and Maleaha Earnest (16th, 15:51) will also be lacing up for another state title run next year. Kristen Freeman (37th, 16:20) concluded the team scoring while fellow seniors Annie Jones (53rd, 16:39) and Emma Nelson (75th, 17:11) ran as alternates.

Union placed all of its top four runners in the top ten team places, and Laura Krug squeezed past the finish line one second in front of Jones in 37th-place to give the Knights just enough. Iowa City Regina was the distant third-place team with 116 points.