After a challenging cross country meet the week before and an emotional week, the Jaguars showed up to Story City on Thursday, September 26^th looking for something positive. Something positive they found as all 21 athletes finished their 5k races on Thursday in season best times; 11 of those athletes running the fastest times of their career.

              Lincoln Akins led the boys’ team with the 15^th fastest time in school history, running his career best time and breaking the nineteen-minute mark for the first time in his career running a 18:28 (39^th) , while teammate Owen Nuss also broke nineteen minutes on route to his career best of 18:46 (46^th).

              The girls’ team was led in similar fashion with Katie Field being the first to cross the finish line in a season best of 24:14 (53^rd), while Autumn Jones-Popp dropped nearly two minutes off her season best and a whole minute off last year’s career best to finish not far behind Katie in 24:37 (57^th).

              Other career best times on the night were Carver Peterson (65^th, 20:11), Logan Bintz (74^th, 21:20), Grant Farnham (78^th, 22:04), Caden Kaltschnee (71^st, 22:10), Kayden Showers (76^th, 22:22), Oliver Riehl (77^th, 24:26), Carter Ganoe (87^th, 23:23), Ben Wanat (106^th, 26:52), Kaleb Klein (109^th, 33:00), Meia Hefley (89^th, 27:00), and Amelia Christensen (126^th, 34:09).

              Those who were able to finish in a season best time, but not quite get their career best were Hailey Rees (91^st, 27:03), Brooke Peterson (111^th, 30:08), Abbi Tucker (115^th, 31:08), Ethan Tucker (54^th, 19:31), Drew Dorsey (67^th, 20:32), and Kyeo Augustine (67^th, 22:04).

              While the times were fast for the Jaguars, they may have seen their toughest team competition of the season this year as both the boys’ and girls’ varsity teams finished 10^th overall in the team race while the JV boys were able to take 8^th.

              Winning the boys race was Bondurant Farrar with 54 points, Nevada was 2^nd with 72, Ogden was 3^rd with 78 and 4^th place was North Polk with 86 points. Bondurant Farrar and Nevada are ranked #12 and #16 respectively in class 3A, while Ogden is #3 in class 1A.

              In the girls’ race was North Polk winning with 57 points, Ballard second with 58 points, Madrid with 74 points for 3^rd, Clear Lake was 4^th with 93 and Roland Story 5^th with 111 points. All five teams are ranked in their respective classes. North Polk is #13, Ballard is #16 and Clear Lake is #17 is class 3A, Roland Story is #17 in class 2A and Madrid is #2 in 1A. 

              The Jaguars will next compete at Pocahontas on Saturday, October 5^th before competing at South Central Calhoun in Lake City on Tuesday, October 8^th.