After racing at Birdsall Park in Cedar Falls last week, the boys and girls cross country teams travelled to Cedar Rapids Sept. 25 to race in the Eastern Iowa Classic at Seminole Valley Park.
Girls
The girls team placed second out of seven teams with 69 points, edging out third-place Center Point-Urbana by two points, but falling short of Linn-Mar’s 23-point first-place finish.
With team leader Kate Van Waning ’26 injured, Adrienne Hodge ’29 stepped up to take first on the team, placing sixth overall in 20:05.00.
Hodge was followed by three more freshmen — Ava Twait, Ellie DeWaard and Carly Moreau — who placed 11th, 12th, and 23rd, respectively.
Rounding out the varsity score, Susanna Olson ’27 and Mia Ahn ’28 placed 24th and 25th, respectively.
Van Waning is currently injured with stress reactions in both shins from overuse. Currently, she’s projected to be out for the rest of the season. Not being able to race or train, Van Waning is worried the young team won’t have a senior member to guide them.
“I think the biggest effect was not having a senior leader with them during runs and during the meet, because with such a young team, they still have much to learn,” Van Waning wrote to WSS.
However, Van Waning is excited by the potential the freshmen are showing.
“It’s really great to see our freshman class step up. Having four freshmen be our top four is awesome to see, and it makes me feel confident about our program continuing to grow in the future years,” Van Waning wrote.
Savannah Mathias ’28, Angela Wang ’29 and Malin Brakke ’29 all raced individually in the girls junior varsity race for West, placing 12th, 13th and 27th, respectively.
Boys
The boys team placed third out of eight teams with 68 points, falling to #7-ranked Iowa City City High’s 39-point first-place finish and #11-ranked Cedar Rapids Kennedy’s 48-point second-place finish, despite a time-dominant performance. One member of the varsity team, Jacob Weimar ’26, did not race due to injury.
2024 state qualifier Michael Hanna ’28 led the team with an outstanding performance, placing fourth in 15:57.90, beating City’s #13-ranked Linus McRoberts.
Finishing close behind, Jake Weiler ’28 placed tenth, followed by Evan Merill ’27 and Eli Dunham ’29, who placed 18th and 19th, respectively.
Instead of the typical ladder half of varsity, consisting of imperative members Lars Pressler ’27 and Jacob Weimar ’26, Jack Eastvold ’26, Asif Ali ’26 and Colin Wehrle ’27 placed 21st, 28th and 29th, respectively.
Pressler and Weimar are currently injured due to training-related stress. Weimar has a grade three stress injury in his right tibia, a bone that makes up the shin.
“My doctor and I came up with a training plan where I need to wear a boot for two months while I’m doing any sort of activity, like walking around school, but I can take the boot off to run at practices and meets,” Weimar wrote to WSS. “I’m doing a hybrid training style where I run only at meets and workouts, and I’m on the bike or elliptical the rest of the time.”
Pressler is dealing with the same injury as Van Waning — a stress reaction in his right shin.
“My injury causes a small area in the middle of my shin to be painful and tender,” Pressler wrote to WSS. “I mainly feel the pain when running, but sometimes I can feel it if I’m walking without a lot of cushion in my shoes.”
However, Pressler believes the injury has had a larger impact on his confidence than on his ability, causing him to run a 17:32 in the Eastern Iowa Classic — an out-of-the-ordinary time compared to Pressler’s usual sub-17:00 performances.
“I think the main thing this injury affected was my confidence. At that point, I had only run once during a workout in the span of two weeks, with the rest of my training being on either a stationary bike or an elliptical,” Pressler wrote. “In the days leading up to the meet, I didn’t trust all the work and effort I put in over the summer, and only thought about the two weeks of little training. This culminated with me getting in my own head during the race, especially when it got tougher, where I would think to myself that I wasn’t fit enough and shouldn’t be racing with the varsity guys, and my season would be over.”
This has caused Pressler to worry about how the rest of the team will fare with the state qualifying meet in less than one month.
“With us having state quals in less than a month, having two top varsity guys being injured in the middle of the season would definitely affect the team negatively in performance, [as] shown by us dropping two places in the state rankings,” Pressler wrote. “I think it also negatively affected the team’s morale due to not knowing how long it would take for us to start running again, and if we would have to stop running for the rest of the season or for a longer amount of time.”
Contrary to Pressler, Weimar believes that their absence has opened opportunities for the rest of the team — despite taking away scoring athletes — strengthening the rest of the team’s performance.
“I think that Lars and I being injured have impacted the team both positively and negatively,” Weimar wrote. “The most obvious impact is that, of course, without two of your varsity runners, you aren’t going to run as well at meets, but I think it’s given the opportunity for other people to fill that gap and really improve themselves.”
The boys junior varsity placed third overall with 72 points, falling behind City’s 15-point win and Linn Mar’s 58-point finish. Ahmed Elbeshti ’28 led West’s JV squad with a time of 17:27.3, placing sixth overall and followed closely by Davi Donato ’29, who placed seventh.
Dara Olaleye ’27, Praneel Rastogi ’26 and Cael Dunham ’28 finished next for West, placing 18th, 21st and 22nd, respectively.
Mohamed Musa ’28 and Charlie Weime ’29 rounded out the race for West, finishing 23rd and 39th overall.
View more results here.
The Trojans will return to their home course at Ashton Cross Country Course this Thursday, Oct. 2.
