Men’s cross country competes in 35th consecutive state meet this Saturday

Photo by Ethan Timmerman

No. 2-ranked Cedar Falls returns to the state Cross Country meet for the 35th consecutive time this weekend in Fort Dodge as the team tries to win back its state title from Indianola, who beat them last year. 

The seniors will race their last high school cross country meet in Iowa this Saturday, before preparing themselves for NXT (Nike cross country regionals), where they will then try to qualify for NXN (Nike cross country nationals) in Oregon. 

Williams won the race by 24 seconds with a time of 15:19. In 5th place, sophomore Jeremy Gall finished with a time of 15:49; right behind him was Porter Myers with a time of 16:06.5, and  Cody Strohman ran a 16:06.7 and placed 7th for the Tigers at their district cross country meet. Senior Ryne Kies ran a 16:20 and got 11th place, and freshman Marshall Myers got a time of 16:39, placing 21st. The other two Tigers, seniors Brody Ahrens and Kyler Blanchard, didn’t have times recorded in the district meet. 

Senior Dominic Williams said, “One of my favorite memories from cross country is my freshman year. Me and a large portion of the freshman class and I would go to a playground and play sand man.” 

For Williams, “Cross country has really shown me to put grit into things, keep at things, perseverance, because if you give up, it’s not going to come to you.”

A highlight forMyers “is probably still NXR from my freshman year. We had a great group of guys, went out to the ‘Rising Stars’ 9-10 race and won it all, my freshman year. Yeah, it was great.” 

With a couple of the guys being hurt, and only seven guys being able to run at State, the team is still considering who will run for the Tigers this Saturday in Fort Dodge. The men’s and women’s races are slotted from 2-3:30 that afternoon.