Ipswich XC runners 3rd and 8th at State B

Ipswich finished third in the Class B Girls' Cross Country team standings last Saturday in Rapid City.

The only teams to beat them were Kimball/White Lake first with 33 points and runners-up Aberdeen Christian with 39. Ipswich was next with 43 points followed by fourth-place Great Plains Lutheran and Newell also in the top five, each with 64.

The girls race was very interesting, how it developed, said Coach Todd Thorson Sunday night at the welcome home.

"It was a three team race and the rest of the teams dropped back," he said. "We were close to winning the championship," he said.

"I was proud of our kids," he said. "We had a great State, the girls were third and the boys eighth." Thorson said there were 83 teams in Class B.

Ipswich was led by Ashlinn Hartwell with a 21:02.82 clocking in 13th and Gracyn Kadlec was 24th in 21:26.65. That placed both Hartwell and Kadlec in the Top 25.

Next was Emily DeRaad 33rd in 21:46.57, followed by Sommer DeRaad 42nd in 21:57.38, and Gabrielle Wald rounded out their effort at 65th in 22:41.34.

Altogether there were 120 girls in the event, won by Hallie Person of Burke in 19:24.02 and Madison Zirbel of Dakota Hills was second in 19:27.34.

Now for the Class B Boys event. A familiar face around here - Cody Larson of Warner won the race in 15:54.61, followed by Jonathon Burkhalter of Bison in 16:41.80. But that outcome helped secure a 32 to 45 team win for Bison over Freeman Academy/ Marion. Next was Northwestern in third at 46, followed by fourth-place Newell at 60 and # five was Mitchell Christian at 68.

Ipswich, meanwhile, was led by Taylor Thorson in 31st at 18:44.83. Dylan Wald added a 19:18.14 for 43rd place and then was Xavier Kadlec in 48th at 19:23.98. Turner Thorson added a 93rd place 20:35.09, followed by Evan Onken, 122nd in 23:03.07.

All these efforts indeed helped the Tiger boys to an eighth-place finish in the team standings with 80 team points!

"We take pride in outworking the competition," said Thorson. Especially when the IHS athletes didn't even know for sure that there would even be a season due to the pandemic.

Coach Thorson announced the end-of-the-season awards for Cross Country athletes, highlighted by the peer-chosen MVPs - Ashlinn Hartwell and Taylor Thorson.