Newton boys finish sixth at LHC meet
Oct. 11—INDIANOLA — The Newton boys' cross country team had a bag of mixed results at the Little Hawkeye Conference meet on Monday.
A trio of Cardinals ran their best times ever but a few others were not where they wanted to be, according to head coach Steve Weeks.
And Weeks ultimately blamed himself for some of it.
"The course was a difficult one, and different from when we ran here in years past," Weeks said. "As a coach, that's on me to not prepare the boys properly for the course. I pulled back on hills as our last courses tend to be flat, and this one had added multiple steep hills they just were not ready for."
Lance Zaabel
Landon Menninga finished in the top 30, Lance Zaabel, Presley Arnold and Asher Wood all posted career-best times and the Cardinals placed sixth at Pickard Park.
Newton scored 163 points and edged Pella Christian in the seven-team field.
Class 3A No. 2 Pella won the conference championship with 34 points, while 4A No. 11 Norwalk was second with 46 and 4A No. 6 Dallas Center-Grimes placed third with 49.
The Dutch placed six runners in the top 14 positions, Norwalk had four in the top 11 and DCG ended up with six in the top 17.
"I'm very proud of the boys and how they ran," Weeks said. "I recruited many of these guys into the sport, so I knew many of them could have easily not run their hearts out this year, but so many of them stepped up to the plate.
"I heavily went after players on the soccer team, knowing they would have the drive to push themselves and know what it means to dedicate to a team wanting to compete for a state berth."
Presley Arnold
Indianola finished fourth in the team standings with 128 points and Oskaloosa scored 158 in fifth.
Menninga led the Cardinals in 27th. He posted a time of 17 minutes, 35 seconds.
Zaabel's career-best time of 17:54.1 placed him 31st, Arnold's personal-best time of 18:08.7 put him 34th and Christian Buchli was 35th in 18:10.8.
The final scoring runner was Asher Wood, who placed 36th in a career-best 18:10.9.
Jesus Murillo (18:23.3) and Javin Doland (18:24.4) were non-scoring runners in 41st and 42nd, respectively.
Class 3A No. 1 Canaan Dunham of Pella won the boys' 5K race in 15:47.4 and sixth-ranked Nathan VanderWaal of Pella was the runner-up in 15:53.3.
"Last week at Fort Dodge we had a complete team performance, and in this race I would say a few of the guys were not where they wanted to be, and others ran their best despite the hills," Weeks said. "All we can do now is buckle down and get this last week of training in for districts. We know what kind of a team we are and the times we're capable of, we just need to see who we are matched up against at districts and prepare for them."
Christian Buchli
