Sights set forward

After two strong finishes for both the men and women Southwestern cross country teams, the Spartans are on the hunt to bounce back and improve this season.

On the men’s team, the Spartans will look to see if top finisher at the 2018 nationals race Cedrick Watson can repeat a strong finish in Kansas throughout his sophomore season.

“He has a good chance to move up,” said cross country head coach Trey Bruton. “I think I’d like to see him make at least first team all-conference this year after being honorable mention. ... Our conference is one of the toughest in the country.”

Bruton said that the veteran leadership set out by people like Watson in a lead by example manner will help others follow his lead and perform at their best.

On the women’s side, while there is no clear cut front runner as of yet, Bruton expects the women to have a strong core that can lower the team average through consistency.

“I think we’re more condensed this year,” said Bruton. “We’ve got a core group that can push each other and for team time, I think we’re going to have a faster team time than we did last year.”

After losing all-conference runner Heather Jessen due to graduation, Bruton believes that the transition in filling in a quality runner like her will be seamless with the talent on the women’s side.

At nationals last season the team as a whole improved on its result from 2017 by four places and produced the best finish for the program since a 22nd place finish in 2009.

The finish may get even better in 2019 with the addition of several assets that strengthen an already strong roster.

“I’m excited about the talent level we have coming back in a lot of places, both men and women,” said Bruton. “We’ve added some key factors, especially on the men’s side, we’ve definitely added a few that are going to help us a lot and on the women’s side we added some new girls that are going to develop really well. ... They’re going to see a lot of improvement.”

The Spartans welcome freshmen Roland Hure, Kolten Johnson, Wyatt Monohon and Nicolea (Alexandru) Vandor on the men’s side and Brianna Hoffman, Mazzy Hummel and Tori Reynolds on the women’s side.

Johnson and Hummel are both products of the Pride of Iowa Conference, running for Central Decatur and Southwest Valley, respectively.

“Overall we’re just excited for the year,” said Bruton. “We have a good chance to improve on what we did last year.”

Slow start in Time Trials

The early season woes hit the Spartans last Friday as SWCC ran short a few members of its full roster at the Region XI Time Trials in Ottumwa.

A seventh place finish for the men (1:32.37) and a fifth place finish for the women (2:20.52) for the Spartans was not an ideal start to the season, but with it being the first meet of the season and plenty of meets left on the schedule the numbers don’t phase Bruton one bit.

“Didn’t look like the team we’re supposed to be, but we’re not even close to the end of the year yet,” said Bruton. “I’m pretty optimistic about how we’re going to do this year.”

On the men’s side, Collin Shreve had the best finish for SWCC with a time of 18:14.5, a mile split of 5:52.3. He finished 26th.

For the women, Danielle Costain was the top finisher for the Spartans. Her time of 25:21.8 was 24th fastest, 13 seconds faster than Hoffman who placed 25th. Both had a mile split of just over eight minutes with Costain’s being 8:09.8 and Hoffman’s being 8:13.09.

Men’s results

Team – 1. Iowa Western 1:22:00; 2. Iowa Central 1:28:02; 3. Indian Hills 1:28:58: 4. Hawkeye 1:28:18; 5. North Iowa Area 1:29:22; 6. Des Moines Area 1:30:08; 7. Southwestern 1:32:27; 8. Southeastern 1:37:53.

Individual – 1. Shawn Kiptoo, Iowa Western, 15:39.6; 2. Kassim Kibet, Iowa Western, 15:49.8; 3. Anthony Rodriguez, Des Moines Area, 16:13.3; 4. Gavin Klein, Iowa Western, 16:27.7; 5. Aldo Savala, Iowa Western, 16:36.3; 26. Colin Shreve, Southwestern, 18:14.5; 30. Nicolae Vandoor, Southwestern, 18:21.8; 33. Joshua Casterns, Southwestern, 18:26.1; 35. Skyler Rawlings, Southwestern, 18:28.7; 45. Austin Lundy, Southwestern, 18:56.6; 65. Aliel Benjamin, Southwestern, 20:22.1; 78. Kolten Johnson, Southwestern, 22:32.3.

Women’s results

Team – 1. Iowa Western 1:48:38; 2. Iowa Central 1:49:56; 3. Des Moines 1:59:54; 4. Hawkeye 2:03:56; 5. Southwestern 2:20:52.

Individual – 1. Emmy Jepkemei, Iowa Western, 19:52.3; 2. Rosalie Fish, Iowa Central, 20:01.4; 3. Lilia Alvarez, Iowa Central, 20:32.5; 4. Lexi Brown, Southeastern, 20:46.7; 5. Nia Taylor, Iowa Western, 20:47.0; 24. Danielle Costain, Southwestern, 25:21.8; 25. Brianna Hoffman, Southwestern, 25:34.8; 34. Mazzy Hummel, Southwestern, 27.58.3; 36. Elenani Tinai, Southwestern, 30:18.0; 38. Fane Sauvakacolo, Southwestern, 31:40.0; 39. Victoria Reynolds, Southwestern, 32:30.9; 42. Jaida Claussen, Southwestern, 42:44.9.