Schraft wins title, Glenwood girls place third at state cross country
FORT DODGE - Janette Schraft’s kick over the final 800 meters propelled the Glenwood senior to her first state title and helped the Rams to a third-place finish at the Iowa State Cross Country Meet at Kennedy Park in Fort Dodge Saturday.
Schraft, who entered the day the No. 3 ranked runner in Class 3A, started slow and methodically worker he way from the pack to the orbit of two-time champion Adrianna Katcher of Center Point-Urbana and No. 1 seeded Ainsley Erzen of Carlisle before out-kicking both over the final half mile.
Schraft said after the race she had a plan coming in and saw that plan play out perfectly as she saw the two lead runners separating themselves from the pack.
“I knew I couldn’t go all out at once and burn out, I had to ebb away at it and ebb away at it,” Schraft said. “Going into the last six hundred meters there was just maybe a little bit of doubt in the back of my head but I pushed that away as fast as I could. I told myself this was something I could compete at and I kept chipping away slowly.”
Schraft finished with a time of 18:22.50, eight seconds better than runner up Katcher.
Glenwood girls coach Dani Woodman said Schraft’s pre-race could not have played out any better than it did on Saturday.
“We went into the racing knowing that she’s strong in the middle, she has strength on the hills and the middle of the race and that she also has the speed for a good finish,” Woodman said. “She knew she didn’t need to be too worked up that first mile and it kind of played our perfectly for her.”
Schraft becomes the Rams’ first ever cross country state champion. The school’s previous top finish was an 11th place finish by Jenny O’Grady in 1985. The Rams third-place team finish matched the school’s best ever.
The Rams’ had strong showings from their two through five runners to secured the third-place trophy with 171 points, just a narrow two points better than fourth place Ballard (173).
So close was the Rams’ team finish, Woodman wasn’t aware her team would be taking home a trophy until the very trophy presentation. She tried keeping track of finishers but lost count with Schraft’s winning run and the quick start of the boys race to follow.
“I was hoping for a top six finish,” she said. “But I went right away to go cheer for the (Glenwood) boys and caught up with the girls later and we went over for the results. It was an amazing feeling. We were definitely a little bit surprised.”
Wahlert Catholic was the team champion (56 points) followed by runner Dallas Center-Grimes (85).
Lacey Jackson was the Rams second finisher, placing 38th overall, followed by Abby McIntyre (51st), Erin Schultz (86th), Lauren Becker (93rd), Aubrey McIntyre (120th) and Abi Schultz (129th).
Jackson started slow this season, according to Woodman, but her late season surge culminating in a strong showing at state was big for her team.
“Lacey is such an under pressure runner,” Woodman said. “She doesn’t always come into the season with the summer training, she did have some health issues this summer, so it’s always great to see her in mid-season. She becomes the Lacey we know and she really handles the pressure well. The state meet is huge and state qualifying was huge and it just seems the more the pressure, the harder she competes.”
The Glenwood boys placed 14th at the state cross country, tops among all Hawkeye 10 teams. Just 12 points separated 12th place Grinnell and the Rams.
Top rated Gilbert was the team champion with 64 points.
“We were very close to where we were at districts, about five seconds out,” said Glenwood boys coach Todd Peverill. “Tyler (Huey) was back a ways, he had a little more of an off day than some of the others, but we were just a few points out of being two places higher. A few seconds here and there and it’s a whole different story.”
Sam McIntyre paced the Rams with a 63rd place finish time of 17:36.90. Following McIntyre was a tight cluster of runners led by Parson Covington (70th), Mason Parks (71st) and Nathan Rohrberg (79th) and Tyler Huey (96th), who all finished with in 16 seconds of each other.
“Sam had a very good day and Nathan recovered from his illness to almost be our second guy,” Peverill said. “He was right there with Parson. We had a real tight group after Sam.
Rohrberg was a surprise, Peverill said. The sophomore had struggled with
the after affects of the flu the last half of the season.
“I didn’t know what he could do and he was right up there and very competitive,” he said. “That’s a good sign for next year.”
The Rams lose just three runners off this year’s squad and return a strong group that gained valued experience running at state.
“We have a lot of good runners back and some eighth graders coming up and a some junior varsity guys who came on at the end of the year,” Peverill said. “We’re not sitting bad for next year.”