Prep cross-country: Super sophomores meet again in Eddyville
Sep. 22—EDDYVILLE — It may not be an official result, but Makenna Montgomery and Chloe Glosser completed their second race of the cross-country season against each other on Eddyville.
Mother Nature was a distance third to the talented sophomores from Albia and Pekin. Montgomery won the second meeting of the year with Glosser in a battle of two state cross-country championship hopefuls, pulling away early over the first half of the race to post the win at a rain-shortened Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont Invitational.
"I'm always excited to run against her. She's awesome," Montgomery said of Glosser. "We always go back and forth between track and cross-country."
Montgomery got the best of Glosser once again on Tuesday after opening the season with a winning run at Albia's home meet. Posting a time of 19:11.1, Montgomery won by 34.3 seconds over Glosser at the hilly Albia Golf and Country Club course.
Glosser was able to close the gap slightly on Tuesday on EBF High School's home course. Still, Montgomery was able to cross the finish line on the track and Ike Ryan Field well ahead of the top-ranked (1A) Pekin sophomore.
"Makenna's great. She's a really good runner and I know she works her butt off," Glosser said. "If it's a runner like her that beats me, I'm fine with it. There was a little bit more of a gap early in this race than there was in the race at Albia, but I feel like I was able to stay pretty even on my miles. That's always good."
Albia locked up what would have been another team title with three runners coming home in the top five as Serene Thompson and Avery Major helped solidify first place for the Lady Dees. Results were not officially posted by EBF as rain ultimately brought a halt to the meet shortly before the start of the varsity high school boys race.
"I didn't want our race to get canceled. I had already prepared my mind for this and I didn't want to do that all over again," Montgomery said. "You could see the leaves coming off the trees. I kind of felt like 'oh boy, here it comes.'
"It was kind of like a scene out of a scary movie," Glosser added. "It was so dark."
With their run on Tuesday at Eddyville rained out, the sixth-ranked (1A) Pekin boys joined the field on Thursday at the Moravia Mohawk Invitational. Brady McWhirter led the Panthers to a second-place finish overall with 41 points, finishing second on The Preserve Course at Lake Rathbun in 17:57.96.
Chariton, ranked fourth in Class 2A, won the team title at the Mohawk Invite with 20 points. David Crabb edged McWhirter in the varsity boys race by 3.71 seconds crossing the finish line in 17:54.25.
Cardinal finished third with 104 points, led by a 14th-place run by Christian Vass in 21:30.37. Moravia placed fourth with 114 points, led by Gable Whitlow's ninth-place finish in 20:00.04.
Moulton-Udell finished fifth with 130 points, led by a 21st-place finish from Cam Swarts in 22:26.34. The Albia boys, running mostly junior varsity runners with the varsity squads compete at the Indianola Invitational, were led to a sixth-place finish as a team (146 points) by Cole Wilson's 20th-place run of 22:24.92.
Centerville teammates Noelle Craver and Layla Strode produced the top-two finishes in the varsity girls race. Craver picked up the win in 24:04.64 while Strode placed second in 25:11.39.
Sophie Hemann led the Albia girls, finishing fourth in 26:40.52. Alexis Bissell led the Cardinal girls, finishing seventh in 28:51.10 topping Comet teammate Makenzi Strasko who placed ninth in 29:38.12.
Both Montgomery, ranked fifth among all Class 2A girls, and 1A's top-ranked individual Glosser have proven themselves this past week running against several runners from several bigger schools. Glosser posted a top-10 finish this past weekend at the Heartland Classic in Pella running against 114 runners from four different states.
"I know Makenna would have been right up there in the top 10 with me," Glosser said. "I knew both of us could compete against that field. It's almost more challenging to run against a girl like her because I know I can stay with her. It's nice to see we can accomplish different things."
Montgomery backed up Glosser's high praise on Thursday, winning the individual girls title in 19:12.8 at Indianola's home meet leading the Lady Dees to an overall third-place finish with 100 points. Indianola senior Gracie Foster finished second to Montgomery, over 36 seconds back, at Pickard Park.
"When I watch Chloe run, you can see how determined she is," Montgomery said. "It's pretty cool to hear someone like that have praise for you."
Glosser and Montgomery will race against each other again on Saturday, taking part in the unique Pekin-hosted Grade Races at Waterworks Park in Fairfield. The two sophomores will go head-to-head for the third time this season.
"I expect Chloe to be up there each time we run," Montgomery said. "I expect her to be right up there with me.
"It's always a great time when we run together," Glosser added.
— Scott Jackson can be reached at sjackson@ottumwacourier.com. Follow him on Twitter@CourierScott.
