“I think that if you talked to some of our cross country kids, they might say, ‘Yeah, I’m out for cross country,’ but we’re more like a family, so I would say we have that more family mentality. I’m very proud of them,” said Mr. Waltz, Algona’s cross country coach.
The runners attended the first meet of the year on Thursday, August 26th, at the Spencer Municipal Golf Course. The boys placed fourth overall with an average time of 19:00.07, while the girls placed second with an average time of 23:24.98. Some stand-out runners for the boys include Ryan Stundahl, who got second; Jace Mortensen, who got tenth; and Dylan Alt, who got twenty-seventh. The top three runners for the girls were Moriah Knapp, who got first; Brooklyn Helmers, who got twelfth; and Eliza Schultz, who got twentieth.
The team then traveled to Webster City on Tuesday, August 31st, where the boys got fourth and the girls got fifth. Individually, Ryan Stundahl placed fourth with a time of 17:27, Jace Mortensen placed twelfth with a time of 17:48, and Isaac Wilson placed forty-fourth with a time of 19:45. Moriah Knapp got second with a time of 20:07, Brooklyn Helmers got twenty-fourth with a time of 22:38, and Eliza Schultz got thirty-fourth with a time of 23:09.
For their third meet, which was on Tuesday, September 7th, the Bulldogs ran at the Estherville Golf Course. Stundahl placed third, Mortensen placed fourteenth, and Wilson placed twenty-second. On the girls’ team, Knapp placed first, Schultz placed nineteenth, and Malyn Davis placed thirty-ninth.
The cross country team competed at Storm Lake on Tuesday, September 14th. The boys and girls both placed 7th overall with the boys having an average time of 19:03.30, while the girls had an average time of 23:31.22. The Algona boys’ top three runners were Stundahl, who placed third with a time of 17:25; Mortenson, who placed twenty-ninth with a time of 18:44; and Alt, who got thirty-first with a time of 18:55. The girls’ top three include Knapp, who got fifth with a time of 20:03; Helmers, who got thirty-ninth with a time of 23:05; and Davis, who got fortieth with a time of 23:18.
The runners’ next meet is on Monday, September 20th, at Joe Sheldon County Park.