Wolverine supreme

MOUNT AYR — Nodaway Valley’s boys entered Thursday’s State Qualifying Meet at Mount Ayr Golf & Country Club as the proverbial favorites, and made no one sweat with their dominant team performance in advancing to state once more, where they will be favorites to take home a third straight crown.

The state meet will be Saturday, Oct. 28 at 2 p.m. (girls) and 2:30 p.m. (boys) at Fort Dodge’s Lakeside Municipal Golf Course.

Brycen Wallace and Skyler Rawlings did what senior leaders are supposed to do, grabbing second and third respectively for the Wolverines, while both raced toward the front the whole way.

Wallace was nipped by only a quarter of a second by the state’s No. 2 ranked runner in Exira-EHK’s Evan Wilson, 16:37.46 to 16:37.71.

“My coach (Darrell Burmeister) said I needed to kick it in a little earlier,” Wallace said. “Half a mile, I really started to get away from him, because he has a really good kick.”

Wallace finished the race strong, but Wilson lived up to his ranking with an even stronger come-from-behind finish.

But the two seniors still led a group that included two other automatic individual qualifiers in Tyler Breheny, who finished fifth, and Josh Baudler, who fought through a recent bout of strept throar, to finish sixth.

“The last two or three weeks, they’ve just been stepping it up in practice,” Burmeister said. “Even their recovery runs, I’ve had too slow them down.”

The Wolverine girls nabbed two qualifying spots and fifth place as a team, as Regan Weinheimer took 12th and freshman Sophia Broers was 14th. The appearance will be Weinheimer’s second in Fort Dodge.

Burmeister noted that he thought Mallory Kuhns ran well, but won’t be returning to state.

“We’re going to get a couple of girls out next year and we’ve got a good junior high program going and I think we’re going to get both teams back to state on a regular basis starting next year.”

As long as the Nodaway Valley Wolverines are at state, they’ve got their eyes on one prize.

“Whoever our sixth and seventh are next week, we want them to be able to push the score up on the other teams and add one or two points,” Burmeister said. “It’s going to be really close next week between us and Bellevue, but if we show up, I like our chances.”

Mount Ayr’s Chase Smith was happy about his performance despite not qualifying for state, as was his coach Deb Larsen.

Smith earned 18th place, just a few spots out of the qualifying top 15, and improved upon his mark of 33rd last year.

As of late, Smith has even been passing teammate Isaac Timmerman.

“He’s (Timmerman) always been steps in front of me, but this year, extra mileage helped me to get him over the summer.”

Larsen knows that that fact has been the difference for Smith as of late.

“Summer mileage. He just needs to keep working and be consistent. He did a lot of work this summer to be consistent,” Larsen said.

The Raider boys finished seventh and the girls were eighth.

Lenox’s Cassidy Nelson fell just short of a qualifying spot as a freshman, taking 16th in a time of 22:29, eight seconds back of a spot.

East Union freshman Gabrielle Valencia sprinted through the finish to edge another runner, and took 17th. The Eagles earned sixth as a team.

“I’m very proud of what they’ve done,” East Union coach Rich Bryson said about his girls. “We fought through the injury bug and the illness bug and that kind of stuff for half the season. For them to come on and perform like they did tonight, perform like they did last week and for the past few weeks, it’s a tribute to the girls.”

Southwest Valley’s girls took 10th among 16 scoring teams, and returns multiple runners next year who consistently ran in the top half of the field at the meets they compeed in this season.

The Timberwolves boys squad was 17th.

East Mills’ Janette Schraft was tops on the girls side and Bedford’s Emma Lucas came in second.

Boys team scores — 1. Nodaway Valley 29, 2. Woodward Academy 69, 3. Earlham 122, 4. Panorama 136, 5. Martensdale-St. Mayrs 195, 6. IKM-Manning 211, 7. Mount Ayr 214, 8. Woodward-Granger 224, 9. Baxter 244, 10. Iowa Christian Academy 263, 11. Treynor 271, 12. Riverside 328 13. West Central Valley 331, 14. Wayne 374, 15. East Mills 386, 16. Central Decatur 389, 17. Southwest Valley 525.

Individual boys — 1. Evan Wilson, E/EHK, 16:37.46; 2. Brycen Wallace, NV, 16:37.71; 3. Skyler Rawlings, NV, 17:01.00, 5. Tyler Breheny, NV, 17:31.00; 6. Joshua Baudler, NV, 17:34.00; 18. Chase Smith, MA, 18:20.00; 21. Joel Blazek, NV, 18:26; 22. Ben Breheny, NV, 18:29; 24. Isaac Timmerman, MA, 18:38; 27. Austin Lundy, NV, 18:50; 44. Will Hunt, MA, 19:36; 49. Cole Nelson, EU, 19:44.82; 70. Scott Driskill, MA, 20:33.85; 90. Tyler Jones, MA, 21:38; 96. Clayton Hansen, Diag, 21:54.00; 98. Mason Smith, MA, 22:00.00; 103. Trent Newton, SWV, 22:12.00; 107. Kade Klommhaus, Diag, 22:24; 109. Will Young, MA, 22:27; 119. Treyg Webb, O-M, 23:00.00; 121. Andrew Hribal, O-M, 23.18.00; 124. Vinh Nguyen, O-M, 23:29.99; 128. Camren Solari, SWV, 23:54.00; 132. Jesse Lawson, Len, 24:35.00; 134. Sean McCormick, SWV, 24:39.00; 135. Blake Rychonovsky, Len, 25:06.00; 136. Frank Cruz, Len, 25:35.00; 137. Chris Froit, EU, 26:58.00; 140. Phillip Currin, SWV, 30:17.74; 141. Brayden Avila, SWV, 31:02.00.

Girls team scores — 1. Panorama 32, 2. Baxter 100, 3. AHSTW 119, 4. Earlham 147, 5. Nodaway Valley 166, 6. East Union 176, 7. Griswold 200, 8. Mount Ayr 237, 9. Riverside 239, 10. Southwest Valley 259, 11. West Central Valley 261, 12. Bedford 284, 13. Treynor 299, 14. CAM 300, 15. Wayne 310, 16. Exira-EHK 389.

Individual girls — 1. Janette Schraft, East Mills, 19:32.00; 2. Emma Lucas, Bedford, 19:33; 12. Reagan Weinheimer, NV, 22:02.00; 14. Sophia Broers, NV, 22:13; 16. Cassidy Nelson, Len, 22:29; 17. Gabrielle Valencia, EU, 22:46; 24. Mallory Kuhns, NV, 23:33.63; 28. Makayla Jones, MA, 23:56; 29. Kate Sutton, EU, 23:58; 34. Molly McNeill, EU, 24:15; 36. Mattie Riemenschneider, EU, 24:17.61; 42. McKinna Hogan, Len, 24:31.00; 43. Maslyn Hummel, SWV, 24:34.05; 45. Madison Van Otterloo, NV, 24:40.00; 48. Aubrey Boswell, SWV, 24:45.00; 53. Halle Pearson, SWV, 25:04.00; 58. Elizabeth Sobotka, MA, 25:17.00; 62. Bailey Anderson, MA, 25:29.00; 64. Kaylee Jacobs, SWV, 25:32.00; 65. Maddie Lohmann, Diag, 25:39.00; 79. Alexa Smith, MA, 26:23.78; 89. Sidney McFee, EU, 27:01.04; 95. Maddie Hayes, EU, 27:17.00; 96. Sam Trost, Len, 27:51.00; 97. Abbie Wetzel, SWV, 27:49.00; 99. Samantha Schaefer, MA, 27:54.29; 102. Jessica Huff, NV, 28:09.00; 105. Bella Johnson, SWV, 28:47.00; 109. Ansley Waigand, EU, 29:11.43; 110. Miah Hummel, SWV, 29:11.67; 119. Grace Jin, Diag, 30:23.00; 124. Jaida Claussen, NV, 34:02.00.