The Southeast Valley Jaguars on Saturday, October 15th, hosted the Twin Lakes Conference cross country at the same place the Jaguars started their season almost 2 months ago; at the Gowrie Golf Course. The effort and hard work of the past two months showed on the home course as Southeast Valley saw 19 athletes compete and finished the day with 15 course, 15 season and 11 career PRs.

   After finishing 1st and 2nd a year ago at Lake City, Cooper Nuss and Oscar Hanson looked to repeat their finish on their home course. Parker Engel of East Sac County had gotten the best of the Jaguar Duo the last few meets, but after slightly leading for the first mile, Cooper and Oscar took the lead and slowly pulled away.  

With about 200 meters left in the race, Oscar and Cooper battled it out for 1st and 2nd where Cooper was able to pull away to finish four seconds ahead of Oscar in a career best 17:29 to repeat as the Twin Lakes Conference champion. Oscar’s season best 17:34 earned him conference runner-up for the second year in a row. Engel of East Sac County finished 3rd.

Freshman Ethan Tucker (24th, 19:48) broke the 20 minute barrier for the first time in his career and Lincoln Akins (29th, 20:29) and Spencer Suchan (32nd, 20:47) used course and career bests to help the Jaguars to a 4th place team finish. The Jags scored 84 points. Sioux Central took the top conference honors with 54 points to edge East Sac County’s 59 points. Manson NW Webster took 3rd with 73 points. Kyle Johnson (33rd) ran a course PR of 21:23 and Drew Dorsey (34th) had a career PR in the varsity race as well.  

Also setting both a career and course PR today in the boys’ race was Dreyvon Steadman (20:56), Elias Field (24:55), and Ryan Stewart (25:36). Jacob Snyder (23:33) and Jameric Dalley (25:30) set a course PR and season PR, while Cole Lundgren (22:50) and Caden Kaltschnee (24:17) set a course and a season PR respectively.

In the girls’ race, four of the girls set a course PR improving their time from the first meet of the year. They were Hailey Rees (39th, 25:33), Katie Field (47th, 26:52), Alexis Peterson (57th, 29:43) and Abbi Tucker (59th, 32:32). Hailey and Alexis also ran their season bests, while Katie improved her career best by over a minute and a half. Emma Gernhart, who missed the first meet, finished the course for her first time in 28:50 (53rd).

“This was a great meet for us today,” commented Coach Nuss. “As coaches, everything we do is to get the athletes to run their best at the conference meet (and the state qualifying meet on Thursday). The last couple meets were a little rocky, but the number of athletes with PR shows that the plan we had laid out was exactly the right path to PR today.”

“I am not sure Cooper and Oscar have had the year we or they thought they might have, but they executed the race perfectly today. To have these two go 1st and 2nd back to back years is a first in my career and was exciting to watch.” continued Coach Nuss. “Need to also recognize the four seniors who finished their career today. It was so good to see them finish on a high note. Finally, I need to thank all of the volunteers that helped with the meet as well as the city of Gowrie for allowing us to host our home meets on the golf course.”

The varsity teams will travel to Shenandoah on Thursday, October 20th for their class 2A state qualifying meet. The top three teams and top 15 individuals will advance to the state high school meet in Fort Dodge on Friday, October 28th.