The Southeast Valley cross country teams were hoping to compete twice this past week. The 1st time was their rescheduled home meet in Gowrie, but once again, Mother Nature turned up the furnace and the meet was canceled for the season due to the heat. Finally, on Saturday, September 9th, the Jaguars got to compete again in Jefferson at the Greene County cross country meet.

Cool temperatures and a flat course were welcomed as the SV runners saw a lot of improvement from their first meet at Webster City even though GPS watches suggested the course might have been longer than the normal 3.1 miles. Oscar Hanson was the top finisher for the Jaguars, getting clipped at the finish line to take runner-up honors in the meet running the course in 19:36. Two runners earned their first career varsity medals in the meet. Owen Nuss ran a 20:37 in the boys’ race to finish 9th while Katie Field ran 27:27 to finish 10th in the boys’ race.

Both boys’ and girls’ varsity teams were 3rd overall in their respective team races. IKM Manning won the girls race with 26 points while Greene County scored 29 points to claim the boys’ team title.

Contributing to the boys’ team score with Oscar and Owen were Carter Ferry (13th, 21:40), Ethan Tucker (14th, 21:50), and Lincoln Akins (15th, 21:58). Grant Smith (19th, 22:35), Dreyvon Steadman (20th, 22:52), Kyeo Augustine (24th, 23:24), Ben Thompson (27th, 24:07), Evan Kuhn (35th, 30:40) and Caden Kaltchschnee (36th, 31:24) competed in the race. Improving their times from the first meet of the year were Owen, Ethan, Dreyvon, Ben, Kyeo and Evan.

In the girls’ race finishing right behind Katie were Brooke Peterson (11th, 27:58) and Autumn Jones-Popp (14th, 28:38). Improving their times and setting season PRs for the girls were Hailey Rees (15th, 29:18), Emma Gernhart (18th, 31:48), Alexis Peterson (19th, 32:41) and Abbit Tucker (20th, 34:32).  

The Jaguar cross country teams will next compete at Panora on Thursday, September 14th on a new course that will start and end at Panorama high school this year, before traveling to Story City on Thursday, September 21st.