Lady Tigers Regional champions

The Ipswich Lady Tigers kept their State B contention hopes alive with convincing team and individual wins at the weather-related postponed Region 4B cross country meet hosted in Gettysburg on October 11. But it was still a somewhat chilly day with snow cover and even some slippery spots on some areas of the course, but at least not actively snowing or even raining.

Their effort was led by senior Aleah Steger, who finished first in the individual standings at 19:43.57.11. Tessa Kilber was right behind her in second place, clocked at 20:16.75 and Emily DeRaad was fourth in 21:40.29, becoming the third IHS scorer. Kari Kanable, another IHS senior, was next in sixth at 21:56.51 and Ashley Ptacek rounded out the effort, also landing among the Top 20 State B individual qualifiers with a tenth-place 22:20.10 effort. That all translated into a 4B 7 to 16 team win over runner-up Timber Lake. Potter County placed third as a team with 30 points and will also advance intact to the State B. In other words, Ipswich indivually qualified all five of its runners for the state meet, had it not finished as one of the three qualifying teams. It was an impressive effort in a girls' meet with five teams in contention for the three berths and 30 total individual girls crossing the finish line.

Meanwhile, there were 14 varsity boys' teams vying to be one of the three State B qualified teams varsity team standings with 62 individual runners. And you can still be eligible for the state meet if you have a minimum of three individual runner among your regional Top 20. But that didn't quite happen this year for the defending State B champion IHS Tigers. (The IHS girls were second as a team in their State B outcome last year.) But the Tiger boys will send a pair of individual state qualifers to Sioux Falls on Saturday, including a recent Aberdeen American News Athlete of the Week, senior Ben Kulesa with a ninth-place 18:21.53 clocking and Maxwell Geditz was next in tenth, also punching his ticket to the state meet with a 18:25.39 clocking. Next for Ipswich was Taylor Thorson in 26th at 20:07.76, followed by Dylan Owens in 27th at 20:17.25 and Evan Onken rounded out the effort at 28th in 20:19.58. (The individual champion was Rhaecine Sam of Wakpala with a 17:12.03 showing, followed by Beau DuBray of Timber Lake in second at 17:48.74.) The three teams automatically advancing intact will be champion Lyman with 29 team points, followed by Sunshine Bible Academy second by a mere point at 30 and Timber Lake third with its 37 team points.

Ipswich head coach Todd Thorson commented on the Ipswich effort at last Thursday's region. "Deubrook, Newell, Dakota Hills and Kimball/White Lake are the girls' teams that will be in the hunt to win state. As far as the regional, the girls team got out hard and were focused from start to finish," Thorson explained. "They never gave an inch in the middle and that is never easy to do when you race hard like that. This group of five girls met four to five days a week all summer and they deserve everything they have earned up to this point. I feel like this is a two-team race between us and Deubrook with Newell not too far behind. We measure success with attitude and effort and they really have been outstanding in those two categories."

Now for the varsity boys! "The boys got out hard and finished well but couldn't commit to the middle. Ben and Max let the front pack get away from them and got too far behind in the middle to really beat the boys they needed to beat," Thorson said. But the pair was still able to qualify for the B in an elite field. For the non-seniors in the group and that was everybody except Kulesa, this year's regional was good experience for the future, according to Thorson. "This was Taylor and Dylan's (Dylan Owens) first varsity region meet and Evan is only an eighth grader and I thought they did really well. Taylor got out hard and somehow held in there to lead their group of three and fell just a few places short of qualifying individually. The future looks bright for the young boys. Taylor was the fifth fastest ninth grader, Dylan (Owens) was the fifth fastest sophomore and Evan was the fastest eighth-grader in the varsity race. Combine that with Turner (Thorson) winning the JV by one minute 36 seconds and Dylan Wald and Xavier Kadlec placing fourth and fifth and being the top seventh graders in the JV, I think they should all be looking forward to next year."

Turner Thorson indeed placed first among 18 boys with a 16:06.05 clocking in the shortened 4K JV course and Wald was fourth at 17:53.48, followed by Kadlec in fifth at 18:07.70. Meanwhile,there were only five girls in their JV 4K and four of them were from Ipswich. Abby Olson won it at 18:35.36, Chloe Jager was second at 19:59.89, Makala DeRaad was in fourth at 23:08.68 and Lily Gaston fifth at 27:03.21.

Yes, the State B is scheduled for Saturday at Yankton Trails in Sioux Falls in conjunction with the respective A and AA boys and girls races. The boys' State B race will begin at 12 noon, followed by the girls' B race at 1:30 p.m. An awards ceremony will follow later that afternoon there with a welcome home celebration that Sunday evening in the School Theatre starting at 6 p.m.