A Baker's double

For the first time in Creston’s ‘Crowd the Course’ home meet, the Panthers had a pair of runners take first and second in their respective class.

In a surprise to few, Brielle Baker won the meet, placing tops among all participants with a time of 20:45. She outlasted a last ditch effort from Bedford’s Class 1A 15th-ranked Emma Lucas on the final, who finished in 20:49.

“We talked about going to that top hill. No one takes us. And if there’s anyone ahead of us, that’s where we take them,” Creston coach Pat Schlapia said.

Braelyn Baker finished 27 seconds back of her sister in 21:12 for third overall and second in Class A.

Both Bakers bested Class 3A 22nd-ranked Taylor McCreedy, who finished 3rd in Class A in 21:19.

Those two, coupled with all of their varsity girls finishing in 24:11 or lower, helped Creston’s girls to improve on its fifth-place finish from a year ago to third at Tuesday’s meet. Glenwood’s girls won the Class A portion of the meet and the JV A portion. Creston’s JV girls also took third.

Of the 15 Creston runners to compete in this year’s home meet that competed in the race a year ago, 13 improved their time.

Most impressively, Sydney Hartsock’s 24:40, 8th-place JV finish in 24:40 was 4:16 better than her time at the meet last season.

Ashton Wills meanwhile, took 80th in Class A in 22:16, and finished 2:53 better than his time at the home meet last year.

Paige Davis and her 25th-place time of 23:02 led a pack of Panther freshmen girls.

“Glenwood and Atlantic grouped better than us as a pack,” Schlapia said, noting where the girls need to get better as a group before the Hawkeye 10 meet.

Clayton Stafford’s time of 18:31 on the boys side was good for ninth in Class A.

With a wicked wind whipping up over the course, Schlapia believed he saw a great deal of focus and determination to run measurably better as a team than last week’s Ballard-Huxley meet.

“This is the toughest course we’ve run this season so far and we say that with pride,” Schlapia said about the home meet. “... Our course will take it out of you physically and mentally.”

The Panthers, for the most part, responded to the course well, sending a good message on a night of celebration for the program’s seniors.

The Panthers honored four seniors before the meet.

Dylan Linch was the Creston lone boy, while Danielle Castillo, Sophia Groumoutis and injured manager Kiersten Latham were announced in front of the crowded course between Southwestern Community College and Crestmoor Golf Club.

UP NEXT — Creston will compete at Orient-Macksburg next Monday.

Wolverine perfection

Nodaway Valley earned a perfect team score, achieving success right out of a dream.

Well, it was for sophomore Joshua Baudler, who told Wolverines coach Darrell Burmeister that he had a dream Monday night that he would finish second. That he did, with a time of 17:27.2 to finish behind Brycen Wallace, who scored his first victory this season. Wallace won the overall meet, and only Wolverine runners finished within 46 seconds of him.

Burmeister was nervous about how his runners’ legs would be after Homecoming this past weekend, but turns out he had no reason to worry,

“We wanted to use this meet to establish ourselves as one of the stronger programs in southwest Iowa since we got to run against a lot of the 2A 3A programs,” Burmeister said, as Nodaway Valley easily outperformed Glenwood, who finished first in the Class A portion.

Nodaway Valley’s girls finished fourth in the B portion as a team.

Sophia Broers and Mallory Kuhns ended their race third and fourth respectively in Class B.

“Mallory ran well and Sophia Broers…they’re both coming along really well,” Burmeister said.

Burmeister also noted that state-ranked Reagan Weinheimer could be back in action soon.

Area successes

Mount Ayr had perhaps its strongest team performance of the year, as the

Raider(ettes), girls earned second and the boys took third.

Paige Lynch’s nintth-place finish and Isaac Timmerman’s 22nd-place finish were best for Mount Ayr.

“We challenged them to medal as a team, so that was neat to get both teams medaling,” Mount Ayr coach Deb Larsen said. “I don’t know when the last time that happened was.”

Southwest Valley ended the evening in sixth place on the boys side and fifth on the girls side. Maslyn Hummel (18th) and Halle Pearson (20th) led the Timberwolf girls.

“Mazzy (Hummel) earned her first medal of the season finishing fifteenth overall in the small school division, while Trent (Newton) came in twenty-third overall in team scoring,” Southwest Valley coach Josh Sussman said. “The lady Timberwolves put together their best performance of the season by finishing in fifth place out of eight teams. Only thirteen points separated second and fifth place, meaning the T-Wolves have the ability to compete in large invitationals. The girls ran as hard as they could, but remained in a relatively close pack, which is essential to scoring well in a cross-county meet. Halle Pearson earned her first medal of her high school career.”

East Union’s girls squad continues to have health issues, as the team finished sixth and Gabrielle Valencia took sixth place in 23:37.

Cole Nelson was tops for the EU boys in 30th.

Cassidy Nelson and McKinna Hogan continue to bring up the front for the Lenox girls, as the two finished 14th and 17th respectively.

Earlham won the Class B portion of the girls race.

Diagonal’s Maddie Lohmann took second in Class B in a time of 22:21.7

Clayton Hansen and Kade Klommhaus ran closely for most of the race, as the two finished 38th and 41st respectively for the Maroons.