Thursday, October 20th the Southeast Valley varsity cross country teams traveled three hours to Shenandoah for their state qualifying cross country meet in hopes of extending their season for one more week and ending it in Fort Dodge. The lengthy trip was worth it as the duo of Cooper Nuss and Oscar Hanson were able to punch their tickets to the class 2A state meet just up the road in Fort Dodge.

   Coming off their 1-2 finish on Saturday at the conference meet, Cooper was able to improve his season PR by 6 seconds, running a 17:23 to claim 8th place overall, getting slightly edged by conference foe Parker Engel of East Sac County. Oscar Hanson shaved off a second off his season best time to run a 17:32 to take 10th place. The top 15 individuals qualify for the state meet.  

   “Oscar and Cooper have run great the last two meets and I can’t be more excited for both of them. We preach that you need a lot of patience in cross country in waiting to get the results and these two showed that by having their best races for the last two and biggest two meets of the season,” commented Coach Nuss.  

   Oscar, a junior, will return to state for his second time as he qualified last year as a sophomore where he finished 41st overall. As a senior, this is Cooper’s first trip to the state cross country meet after he just missed out last year, however he has qualified for state track in the 1600m and 3200m run the past two seasons. Coach Nuss feels their experience in the state track meets as well as having the pressure in track to qualify probably played a big role in their success at conference and the state qualifying meet the past week.

   Overall, the boys team finished 7th overall with 202 points. The top three teams qualifying for the state meet and those teams were Des Moines Christian (21), Chariton (95) and Clarinda (125). Helping Cooper and Oscar to 7th place were Ethan Tucker (53rd, 20:15), Lincoln Akins (61st, 20:34), Kyle Johnson (73rd, 21:31), Spencer Suchan (74th, 21:49) and Dreyvon Steadman (76th, 21:54).

   Leading the night off was the girls’ race. The Southeast Valley girls finished 13th in the 15 team field with 353 points. Top three state qualifying teams were Van Meter (37), Des Moines Christian (66) and Clarinda (80).

   The five Jaguars competing Thursday were Hailey Rees (64th, 27:40), Katie Field (67th, 28:10), Alexis Peterson (81st, 31:03, Emma Gernhart (82nd, 31:20) and Abbi Tucker (83rd, 31:40).

   Cooper and Oscar will compete on Friday, October 28th at 2:45pm in the class 2A boys state meet. (This is a change from past years running on Friday, not Saturday this year). The state meet is held just up the road at Lakeside Golf Course at Kennedy Park in Fort Dodge. The session begins at 2:00pm with the class 2A girls.