While the Ankeny cross country teams were unable to run Thursday when the Southeast Polk Invitational was cancelled due to lightning, the Ankeny Centennial squads traveled to Iowa City to compete in the Bud Williams Invitational at the Iowa City Kickers Soccer Club.
The seventh-ranked Centennial girls’ team placed second in the nine-team field with 50 points. No. 10 Dubuque Senior won the meet with 44 points.
“It was hot and dry; every step kicked up puffs of dust along the course,” said Centennial girls’ coach Eric Cogdill. “The dust impacting air quality was as much of a hindrance as the hot temperatures. I’d be surprised if Iowa City had any rain at all in September.”
Leah Klapatauskas led Dubuque Senior with a third-place finish. Teammates Georgia Harms and Kaitlyn Miller finished sixth and eighth, respectively.
In the boys’ meet, No. 4 Iowa City High claimed the title with 36 points, finishing 13 points ahead of No. 15 Cedar Rapids Prairie. No. 14 Centennial took third with 85 points.
“We had a little more of a spread between the top four (runners). We need someone from the second pack to really step up,” said Centennial boys’ coach Chad Fickbohm. “And again, we need everyone to get completely healthy. We have a couple of weeks to put it together, and we are ready for some cooler weather.”
Centennial’s Rondi Quass placed second in the girls’ race, posting a time of 19:37. She finished 7 seconds behind Gabrielle Cortez of Cedar Rapids Prairie.
“Rondi led for 98 percent of the race which is something she hadn’t done before, and she just got ran down by one of the top 400/800 runners in the state,” Cogdill said. “Running from the front was a new experience for Rondi and something we encouraged for this race to add to her bag of skills.”
Tillie Smith placed ninth for the Jaguars in 20:54. Anika Mohrhauser was 10th in 20:58.
“Overall, this was a good experience for our girls,” Cogdill said. “We took a long van ride, ran in some uncomfortable conditions, got to race against some fresh competition, and didn’t finish as high as a team as we would have liked. Those experiences are good as we make a final push toward the championship portion of the season.”
Karsten Peters led the Centennial boys’ squad with a seventh-place finish. He was clocked in 17:24.
Tyler Schermerhorn took 10th in 17:40. Cooper Majors was 15th in 17:51.
Ford Washburn of Iowa City High won the race in 16:32. He defeated runner-up Ty Carr of Danville/New London by 30 seconds.