After a third-place finish at the Eastern Iowa Classic in Cedar Rapids last Thursday, the boys cross country team returned to Ashton Cross Country in Iowa City for their final home meet of the season. Eleven schools from around eastern Iowa traveled to the meet. Despite prior injuries affecting the team, both the varsity and junior varsity teams swept the meet.
The Trojans varsity squad placed first out of seven teams with a near-perfect score of 20 points. #23-ranked Micheal Hanna ’28 led the team, placing first with a time of 15:40.5. Behind Hanna, Jake Weiler ’28 and Evan Merrill ’27 placed second and fourth, respectively. Jack Eastvold ’26 finished next, placing fifth overall. Thomas Tong ’26, Asif Ali ’26 and Colin Wehrle ’27 finished eighth, ninth and 11th, respectively. Rounding out the team, Eli Dunham ’29 and Lars Pressler ’27 finished 14th and 15th, respectively. Jacob Weimar ’26 withdrew from the race during the last kilometer due to his continued stress injury in his right tibia.
Weiler believes both teams had strong showings, but that varsity isn’t at its best without Pressler and Weimar.
“I would say varsity still isn’t at full strength yet because I feel like Lars and Jacob are going to need a little more time to recover from their injuries,” Weiler said. “I think the individual placement was great — [Michael and I] went first and second, which is perfect, and we want to run at every other meet, placing right next to each other.”
West was supposed to race against 12th-ranked Cedar Rapids Kennedy, but when the gun went off, the team was nowhere to be seen.
“Not having a ranked team there definitely impacted me and Michael’s race, because it’s very difficult to be competitive in a race when there is no one in front of you to compete with,” Weiler said. “It was a surprise when the gun went off, and Kennedy wasn’t in the race at all. I think we would’ve been a lot more competitive if Kennedy were there.”
Weiler notes how important team rankings are going into the home stretch of the season.
“Tonight’s performance will hopefully move our team’s ranking up after dropping to 17th this past week, when just a couple of weeks ago, we were ranked 13th,” Weiler said. “If our team is ranked in the top 15, we have a much better chance of getting put in a state qualifier race with teams that are easier to beat, giving us a better chance of making the state meet.”
After the varsity race, the junior varsity team raced next, placing first out of six teams with a total of 15 points, a perfect score. Davi Donato ’29 led the squad, placing first overall with a time of 17:19.3. After Donato, 10 more West runners finished consecutively, sweeping the first 11 places.
With the state qualifying meet less than three weeks away, Weiler believes the team needs to execute now so they have an easier time qualifying for the state meet.
“For state qualifiers, we need to run well now so that we can lay back a little later, because the teams in the top 15 are favored, so they are put into state qualifier meets where they are likely to win without doing too much work, so I really hope that’s the case for our team,” Weiler said.
View the full results of the race here.
The girls cross country team travelled to Southeast Polk Cross Country Course outside Des Moines Thursday for the Southeast Polk Cross Country Invite, where the varsity team — led by Adrienne Hodge ’29, who placed 24th in 20:49.10 — placed eighth out of 14 teams, and the junior varsity team had an incomplete score.
The boys cross country team will race in their final regular season meet of the season Oct. 9 at the Mississippi Valley Conference Super Meet at Kickers Soccer Club in Iowa City. On Oct. 16, they will head to the MVC Mississippi Divisional Meet at Western Dubuque High School in Epworth.
