Ipswich Cross Country runners earn trip to State B meet in Rapid City this weekend

"It was a good race today for the Tigers," said Ipswich cross country coach Todd Thorson, regarding the IHS team results at the Region 4B meet in Gettysburg last Wednesday.

"Both boys and girls teams qualified for state." What that essentially means is that both the IHS girls and boys will send their entire teams to the State B in Rapid City, scheduled for October 24 in Rapid City. And that indeed makes them eligible for the girls and boys combined team standings. Thorson predicts "It will be between Kimball/White Lake, Estelline and us for the combined. It will be a close race between our teams."

Meanwhile Ipswich won the girls' 4B meet on a blustery day in Gettysburg, topping runners-up Potter County 9 to 19, followed by Wolsey-Wessington third with 34 girls' team points. So that means that those three girls' teams will each advance intact into the state meet. The Tiger boys finished second only to Lower Brule in their team-point chase (23 to 36) while third-place Faulkton also qualified their entire boys' team with 36 team points. (The Tigers earned second on tie-breaking criteria.)

Now for those individual varsity outcomes! The Ipswich girls were led by Ashlinn Hartwell's second-place finish in 20:57. It was narrowly won by Highmore-Harrold's Autumn Fallis in 20:49. Hartwell, Gracyn Kadlec in fourth in 21:28, Emily DeRaad sixth in 21:39, Gabrielle Wald seventh in 21:51 and Sommer DeRaad 14th in 22:37 would have also all qualified for the state meet by finishing in the coveted Top Twenty. (There were 37 total girls entering the race.)

The Tiger boys were led by Taylor Thorson, eighth in 18:33. It was won by Ian Beyer of Timber Lake in 17:44, topping Faulkton's Hunter Niederbaumer in second at 17:56. Ipswich's second highest scorer that day was Xavier Kadlec 14th in 19:07 and next was Dylan Wald 19th in 19:20. So those three runners would have each advanced to the boys B by finishing in their Top Twenty individual standings. That would have been the minimum number of runners to compete as a team in the state team-point hunt.

Turner Thorson added a 21st-place outcome in 19:28 while Evan Onken placed 44th in 22:02 among the 51 runners last Wednesday.

They held JV races after the main events. Ipswich entered several girls in that clash, won by the Lady Tigers Sienna Kessler in 17:54. Ashley Ptacek was second in 18:20, followed by Madisyn Gellhaus third in 18:31, Reaghan Bowers fourth in 19:48 and Ava Davis fifth in 20:23. Makala DeRaad was ninth in 22:58 and Natalie Crissman tenth in 23:55. (Ipswich didn't have any entrants in the boys' JV outcome, that was dominated by Lower Brule.)

The October 24 state event is scheduled at the Hart Ranch near Rapid City, beginning with the Class B girls' race at 10 a.m. Mountain Time, directly followed by the Class B boys at 10:45 a.m. Mountain Time.

A welcome home program will be on Sunday, Oct. 25 in the School Theater, starting at 6:30 p.m.