The West Fork cross country team hosted Belmond-Klemme-CGD, North Butler and Clear Lake Classical for their annual home invite on Monday.
In the girls race, Belmond-Klemme-CGD was the team champion with 24 points and West Fork finished as the runner-up with 31 points. North Butler didn’t register a team score. Individually, B-K-CGD’s Lila Swenson finished in first with a PR time of 21:56, followed by teammate Avery Boeshart in fifth in 24:46. West Fork’s Evie Hitzhusen crossed second in 22:55 followed by teammate MacKenna Dick in third in 23:17. North Butler’s Faith Eberline placed fourth in 24:27 and was joined inside the top 8 by teammate Cora Barnett in seventh in 25:28. Swenson describes the message to herself during the race that propelled her to the top finish.
“It was great. I wasn’t expected to win. Going through my head the whole race was prove them wrong,” says Swenson. “I ended up coming out with a good race. I had some good competitors, so it was really exciting.”
In the boys race, West Fork was the team champion with 23 points, Belmond-Klemme-CGD was second with 50 points, Clear Lake Classical was third and North Butler placed fourth. Individually, B-K-CGD’s Nolan Muhlenbruch was the champion with a PR time of 19:15. West Fork had four runners finish inside the top 5, paced by Kyler Harley in second in 19:48 and Kaden Graf in third in 19:59. Owen Wedmore placed fourth and Brayden Williams was fifth for the Warhawks. North Butler’s top finisher was William Nielsen in 10th in 20:44. B-K-CGD Sophomore Nolan Muhlenbruch on his top finish racing through the heat.
“This was the first time I got a first place, so pretty happy about it. I PR’d by 15 seconds. Last year I got 19:32. I just ran a 19:15,” says Muhlenbruch. “It drains quite a bit of your energy, when you are sweating a lot. You need to stay hydrated throughout the race by getting water.”
West Fork Boys Head Coach Caleb Hovenga on a team title to kickoff homecoming week.
“It was a good competitive meet for us to be able to run with. The weather looking like it is right now, windy and hot, it’s not exactly a what time did you run? It’s a how did you compete with the guys next to you for sure. Our guys pushed, they made some good aggressive moves when they needed to,” says Hovenga. “We have not had guys finishing that high. Even with a small meet it’s good for them to get a small victory like this today. We like to run in the packs. We celebrate when someone wins and we bring people up when they lose, so we’ll just keep pulling along.”
North Butler’s next meet will be at Osage on Tuesday. West Fork’s next meet will be at Clear Lake on Thursday. Belmond-Klemme-CGD’s next meet will be at Riverhawk Invite in Mason City on Tuesday, September 23.
