ELDORA – Grundy Center cross country is off to a promising start this fall with two motivated, decorated seniors leading the way.
At Thursday’s Pine Lake Run in Eldora, Emerson Vokes cruised to the individual boys title, while Grace Storjohann finished third in the girls race in a new personal-best on the hilly Pine Lake Golf Course route.
The Spartan boys finished third with 65 team points, trailing champions North Polk, who won a sixth-runner tiebreaker with Jesup after both scored 52 points through five guys.
Vokes was the runaway winner at 16:13, crossing the finish one minute, 44 seconds ahead of runner-up Will Nesbit of Jesup.
“I wanted to break 16 minutes here, but this race, it’s a bruiser,” Vokes said. “I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better race than that, I didn’t feel like I lost my grip at all during that race.”
The senior, who won a state cross country title last fall in addition to a 3,200-meter run title in the spring, felt like he had work to do after finishing second at a Marshalltown meet to start the season on Aug. 28.
“I kinda fell apart,” Vokes said of that Marshalltown race, where he finished in 15:54, 30 seconds behind champion Preston Johnson of Marshalltown. “My brain stopped before my legs did, and it just took a lot of energy out of me and gave me a lot of motivation to get back.”
Vokes said a workout earlier in the week before the Eldora race helped with his mental toughness.
“Our job is to reflect, not regret. Meets like that are meant to make you stronger,” Vokes said. “It really got my mind right, and reminded me of why I’m doing this. God gives me the strength to do this, and I’m going to glorify him through it.”
“It’s sad finishing out here at Pine Lake one last time, I love this sport so much, and it means a lot to run in front of everyone here.”
Jayce Fryslie, a sophomore, finished third in 18:17 for the Spartans. Leo Block finished seventh as a freshman in 19:14, with Oliver Del Castillo and Daniel Barkley scoring 26th and 28th-place team points for Grundy, respectively, to round out the team scoring.
“Jayce is really coming along, a really competitive kid,” Vokes said. “I really like taking all of the younger guys under my arm and helping to lead them. … [Leo] reminds me of myself when I was his age, when I first started with the team and I’m looking up to guys like Kaden [Lynch] and Tyler [Venenga] and thinking, ‘How can I make my mark?’
“I think he proved what he could do and I think he’s going to continue to progress, and I really hope for the best for him.”
Storjohann was also motivated by what she considered a lackluster performance at Marshalltown. She bounced back with a time in Eldora that was over a minute faster than her last run on the course, and also beat North Polk’s Alexis Hergenreter to the finish line after Hergenreter won the Marshalltown meet by almost two full minutes over Storjohann, who finished fourth in that race.
“I knew I wanted to be closer to her time,” Storjohann said. “I was able to beat her here and have my best last mile of all time, so I just felt great, and that’s what matters most. It’s good to be doing so well early in the season.”
After rehabbing an injury from the end of track season, the offseason provided Storjohann opportunities to work on a “next level” with the goal of trying to medal at state cross country later this fall.
“I’ve been kicking in the miles this summer, and my body’s had a great response to it,” Storjohann said, “I feel awesome.”
The Spartan girls finished up fifth in the team standings; Evelyn Geerdes was ninth overall in 22:38, Maddy and Addy Hendershot finished 25th and 26th in team scoring and Karlee Lynch closed team scoring in 51st.
“Evelyn’s a real stud,” Storjohann said. “Freshman year, she was barely on the varsity roster by the end of the season, and now [as a junior] she’s in line to qualify for state, ranked 15th in the state right now. She’s just an unbelievable athlete.
“I have to shout out our dual sporters, both Evelyn and Kenna [Steinmeyer] are dual-sporting with tennis in the fall this year, and they’ve been killing it. I have a lot of respect for them both.”
Short-handed D-NH boys stay strong
The Dike-New Hartford boys were without their two of their usual varsity scorers but mustered a solid fifth-place finish in Eldora.
Freshman Brayden Starr led the Wolverines with a 17th-place overall time in 19:54. McKennen Lindaman scored 19th-place points, Gus L’Heureux 21st and Sam Anderson and Tate Hermann rounded out team scoring with 25th and 39th-place points, respectively.
Sully O’Neill and Cooper Dall were out of the lineup at Eldora, after the Wolverines won the team title at a Maynes Grove meet hosted by Iowa Falls-Alden the week prior.
“We knew we wouldn’t be full strength going into this but we asked the guys to have some surprises out of that group,” D-NH head coach Will Reingardt said. “Sam Anderson really stepped up as our number four tonight and all of the guys had great races. I dared both boys and girls groups to just have fun today, and I thought both groups did a good job of competing and surviving to be ready for next week.”
The D-NH girls were sixth in the team standings, 13 points behind Grundy Center. Chloe Paulsen and Sedona Oldenburger led the D-NH group in 13th and 15th; Josey Syhlman, Olivia Petullo and Lily Moore were the other three scorers for the Wolverines.
“We have a lot of new varsity-caliber runners, so it was a new experience for them,” Reingardt said. “We’ve had some good workouts these last few weeks and our spirits are high but we really wanted to treat this as a competitive workout and keep the group going. Chloe and Sedona both medaled, which was great to see, and I thought they all did great from top to bottom on a tough course.”
Pifkin leads Rebels
Caleb Pifkin, a freshman, was the lead runner for the Gladbrook-Reinbeck boys in 11th place overall in 19:46. G-R did not field a full team; Caleb Bowser was 51st, Braiden Sager 112th and Levi Coughenour 117th.
Katelyn Monaghan was the lone runner for the G-R girls, finishing 141st overall in 38:07.
JAKE RYDER SPORTS 