By Kevin Gartman
Head cross country coach
SEARSBORO – Big Springs Shooting Complex was the site and Tri-County was the host for the SICL cross country meet on Tuesday, Oct. 10.
Varsity Girls finish 3rd, running their strongest meet of the season as a collective group. Ellen Cook leads the Bravettes with a 9th place finish, earning 2nd-Team All-Conference honors.
Camryn Brennan finishes with a 42-second personal record! 
Multiple other girls were near career/season-best times tonight!
Varsity boys finish 4th, battling well and getting strong performances from all parts of the lineup. Jayden Ross leads the Braves, just 4 seconds off his career-best time, earning Honorable Mention All-SICL honors.
Cael Cheney finishes with a 53 (!!) second PR! Jayden and Jusiah Wetering both miss career PRs by a few seconds.
JH Results:
Lauryn Larmore, Sophia Semprini and Alexa Rose pLACE 4-11-14, cutting great time off of Thursday’s meet on the same course!
Cade Lowry, Dayton Reif, and Jaxon Young go 5-7-12, and Luke Benson and Tristan Savant also turn in their best races of the season! The JH boys finish SICL runner-up as a team!
Overall thoughts – I thought we did a really nice job of competing at all levels. Since Big Springs has become the SICL meet course, just five days after our home course, we have the opportunity to run it back-to-back which can lead to a direct comparison of how well we’re cutting time and improving.
One of our goals going into the meet on the girls side was to compete as close to runner-up Lynnville-Sully as we could. With three strong runners at the top of the results, it had to be a full team effort if we were going to make it close.
I thought seniors Alivia Cline, Lydia Singleton, Camryn Brennan, and Makenna Johannes all found ways to beat conference opponents that they had not placed ahead of earlier in the year, giving us a chance to close the gap with runners 3-6.
For Camryn to be running as well as she is to close out her senior year is special as that just doesn’t happen often. Proud of her!
On the boys side, we were likely projected to finish fourth coming into this meet, but I wouldn’t have guessed the order in which our boys finished.
Jayden Ross led well, finishing 4 seconds off a career best. Jusiah Wetering with his strongest (in my mind) run of his career considering time and course difficulty. Cael finished right behind him with his career-best time by nearly a minute. Pretty unbelievable what he was able to do on Tuesday.
All three JH girls place in the top 7 individuals as I’ve tracked conference times over the past 10-15 seasons. All three showing some pretty special promise, even more impressive as all three balanced a full volleyball season as well. I can’t wait to see what’s ahead in their futures!
JH Boys finish the season so strong from where we came from. Of our five boys, only Dayton ran last year as a shared athlete with football as well. He chose to just run cross country this year and he was minutes stronger course-to-course through the year as a result. Dayton was a good recruiter, adding in Cade in his first season – finishing top 5 at conference and showing a lot of skill.
Jaxon split with football and ran as well as he did despite limited fall season practices. Luke and Tristan were also brand new, with Tristan even joining midway through the season. With how all five boys finished the year, you never would’ve guessed they lacked the experience that they did, a huge testament to their work ethic.
We’re excited for a new meet location for state qualifying this year, escaping the Iowa City Regina soccer park course for a third year in a row as we head to South Hardin. The course will not be quick and easy, but we’re very excited about the chance to compete one more time with our nine seniors.
SICL XC Meet
at Big Springs Shooting Complex
Varsity Girls
Montezuma was 3rd out of 5 scoring teams
Bravettes places, times – 9, Ellen Cook 22:16; 16) Vivian Cook 24:20; 19) Alivia Cline 24:43; 21, Lydia Singleton 25:02. 22, Camryn Brennan 25:22. 24, Makenna Johannes 25:35; 31, Ashlee Eilander, 26:32. 35, Haileah Eichenberger 27:05; 43, Faith Ferry 34:32.
Varsity Boys
Montezuma was 4th of 6 scoring teams
Braves places, times – 11, Jayden Ross 19:06.20, Jusiah Wetering 20:15; 22, Cael Cheney 20:32. 24, Kohen Holland 20:36; 28, Carter McKee, 20:51; 29, Jack Erselius 20:59; 31, Linkyn Bru 21:09. 33 Bryson Stockman 21:16.
Middle school girls
Combined girls/boys team was 2nd of 10 teams
Bravette places/times – 4, Lauryn Larmore 10:12. 11, Sophia Semprini 11:35. 14, Alexa Rose 12:07.
Middle school boys
Combined boys/girls team was 2nd of 10 teams
Boys places/times – 5, Cade Lowry 9:44. 7, Dayton Reif 9:53; 12, Jaxon Young 10:41. 22, Luke Benson 12:05. 23, Tristan Savant 12:08.
