Girls are champs, boys fourth in home meet
An early-season test to see how well the Monticello cross country teams stack up against several of the top teams in the state brought this result.
The Panthers stack up quite well.
Monticello’s girls won the championship, and its boys finished fourth, in the Monticello Invitational Sept. 9 at the high school.
The key, head coach Dan Sauser said, was starting well.
“I thought at (Iowa City, Aug. 31) we went out real passive and just never got involved in the race,” Sauser said. “Going into this meet we talked about just getting ourselves better engaged in the races.
“Looking as a whole, I was really happy with how our kids got themselves active in the early part of the race.”
The Panther girls, who came into the meet ranked fifth in the state in Class 2A, faced a field that included four other ranked teams, and topped them all. Granted, Mid-Prairie was missing its top runner and defending state champion, Danielle Hostetler, who was on a college visit.
But Monticello topped the first-ranked Golden Hawks by 20 points, and third-ranked Tipton by 32.
“It was the most complete race our girls have had,” Sauser said. “Every part of our race was good. That’s what it takes in a field like this.”
Leah Koehler led the team with a seventh-place finish. Marisa Kehoe was 12th, Peyton Ries took 19th, Halle Recker was 25th and Ava Capron was 26th.
“Leah is just so solid out there for us,” the coach said. “Marisa beat a number of ranked girls. And Peyton Ries is just continuing to get better.”
There were six ranked teams in the boys’ field, and the Panthers, who came in ranked 18th, finished fourth.
“They’re such a young group of runners,” Sauser said. “Four of our top five are freshmen and sophomores. Our focus is just to improve, and they exceeded my expectations for this race as far as continuing to develop.”
Aiden Althoff cracked the top 10 with a 10th place finish. Alex Oswald was 20th, Rylan Bertling 37th, Mace Schnoor 40th and Alan Arriaga-Rangel 41st.
“Aiden led us out there real nicely,” Sauser said. “Alex Oswald continues to shine as our number two runner. But the one I thought really made a jump was Alan Arriaga-Rangel. He just killed it. And that’s what we needed.”
The Panthers had some big achievements in the junior varsity races as well.
Emmy Verhagen was the girls’ JV champion with a time of 21:54.8, which would have placed her sixth on the team and 42nd overall in the varsity race.
“It was Emmy’s race the whole way,” the coach said. “She got us going for the day and set the tone early.”
For the boys, Grant Gassman had a personal best time of 20:00.8 to finish 13th. Every member of the boys’ JV team had a season’s best time.
On to Fillmore
The Panthers will compete in the Cascade Invitational Sept. 14, at Fillmore Fairways.
The schedule:
• 4 p.m. – middle school boys
• 4:25 p.m. – middle school girls
• 5 p.m. – high school boys (all)
• 5:40 p.m. – high school girls (all)
Sept. 9
Monticello Inv.
VARSITY BOYS TEAM SCORES
1, Mid-Prairie 66; 2, Denver 75; 3, Western Dubuque 127; 4, Monticello 137; 5, Tipton 179; 6, Davenport Assumption 187; 7, Bellevue 195; 8, Springville 211; 9, Anamosa 212; 10, Dyersville Beckman 222; 11, Calamus-Wheatland 244; 12, North Linn 256; 13, Cascade 285; 14, Northeast 331; 15, Starmont 386.
MONTICELLO RESULTS
10, Aedan Althoff, 17:24.8; 20, Alex Oswald, 17:51.6; 37, Rylan Bertling, 18:31.2; 40, Mace Schnoor, 18:42.3; 41, Alan Arriaga-Rangel, 18:42.9; 68, Brennan Bohlken, 19:35.8; 95, Royce Kiburz, 21:04.7.
VARSITY GIRLS TEAM SCORES
1, Monticello 74; 2, Mid-Prairie 94; 3, Tipton 106; 4, Western Dubuque 116; 5, Denver 118; 6, Dyersville Beckman 125; 7, North Linn 176; 8, Davenport Assumption 181; 9, Camanche 236; 10, Cascade 244; 11, Anamosa 266.
MONTICELLO RESULTS
7, Leah Koehler, 20:17.0; 12, Marisa Kehoe, 20:26.6; 19, Peyton Ries, 20:47.3; 25, Halle Recker, 21:01.8; 26, Ava Capron, 21:02.2; 53, Kaitlin Kunde, 22:38.9; 59, Bri Kearney, 23:10.8.
JV BOYS TEAM SCORES
1, Denver 16; 2, Mid-Prairie 97; 3, Davenport Assumption 100*; 4, Tipton 100; 5, Western Dubuque 113; 6, Monticello 141; 7, Dyersville Beckman 179; 8, Starmont 187; 9, Anamosa 230.
MONTICELLO RESULTS
13, Grant Gassman, 20:00.8; 20, River Smith, 20:23.3; 27, Nicholas Schrader, 21:00.1; 39, Emmit Rickels, 21:44.2; 60, Ben Welter, 23:31.3; 61, Brandon Kunde, 23:36.8; 62, Gabe Kraus, 23:45.1; 72, Matthew Beanblossom, 25:10.5.
JV GIRLS TEAM SCORES
1, Western Dubuque 43; 2, Tipton 44; 3, Denver 59; 4, Monticello 92; 5, Mid-Prairie 122; 6, Dyersville Beckman 165.
MONTICELLO RESULTS
1, Emmy Verhagen, 21:54.8; 15, Katie Stadtmueller, 24:07.6; 29, Leah Schemmel, 24:43.6; 30, Lauren Verhagen, 24:47.6; 46, Taylor Gassman, 27:33.2; 70, Skylar Christensen, 31:07.9.