The Southeast Valley cross country teams took advantage of a flatter fast course and perfect weather on Thursday, September 21st at the Norseman Invitational at Story City. The result of their efforts was the 19 finishers for the Jaguars all ran season PRs and 13 of those finishers finished the 5k course in career best times ever.  

Leading the Jaguar boys’ team once again was Oscar Hanson. Earning his fourth medalist honor of the year, Oscar finished 12th overall in 18:11. Carter Ferry was the 2nd Jaguar runner to finish, coming across 38th overall in 19:26. Ferry was followed by team scorers Owen Nuss (44th, 19:47), Ethan Tucker (47th, 19:53) and Lincoln Akins (52nd, 20:08). Displacement runners for Southeast Valley were Ben Thompson (59th, 20:49) and Dreyvon Steadman (62nd, 21:02).  

The seven varsity boys scored 193 points to finish 8th place overall. Finishing ahead of Southeast Valley was class 3A - #17 ranked Nevada, the team champion, class 3A Clear Lake was second followed by 1A-#10 ranked Ogden and 1A- #11 ranked Madrid as well as 3A teams Bondurant Farrar and Greene County.

In the girls’ race, Katie Field was the first Jaguar finisher. Katie’s 25:08 was her career best and was good enough for 45th place. She was followed by teammates Autumn Jones-Popp (51st, 25:43), Brooke Peterson (60th, 26:44), Hailey Rees (62nd, 27:08) and Emma Gernhart (72nd, 28:32). Abbi Tucker broke 30 minutes for the first time in her career running 29:00 (73rd) and Alexis Peterson finished 81st with a 31:59.

The girls also finished 8th in the 11 team field with 228 points. Class 3A - #9 Clear Lake was the team champion followed by class 1A - #1 Madrid. Host Roland Story was 3rd place overall in the team standings.

There was also a separate JV boys race at the Norseman Invite. Cole Lundgren running in his first meet of the season was a JV medalist finishing in 7th place. His 19:34 was a career best time. Kyeo Augustine was next in 26th place running 20:53. Grant Smith (37th, 21:44), Caden Kaltschnee (72nd, 24:43) and Evan Kuhn (92nd, 28:23) combined for a team score of 166 points which put them in 5th place in the team race that included 9 full JV teams.

“Very few times in my career as a coach, have we had every finisher on the team set a season PR in the same meet. Both teams figured out how to pack run and made the realization of the advantage of staying together as a team for as long as they can. If they continue to do this, we will be a very good team by the end of the season,” commented Coach Nuss.

The Jaguars will compete at Pocahontas on Saturday, September 30th before heading to Lake City on Tuesday, October 3rd. These will be the final two regular season meets before the Twin Lakes Conference meet on Thursday, October 12th.