Warriors begin cross country season
Delaney Scherf (left) and Hannah Asche led the lady Warriors on Sept. 3, at MFL MarMac. Asche achieved a personal course best 22:09 and finished third, while Scherf placed ninth. (Photos by Bev Hamann)
At the Sept. 3 meet at MFL MarMac, McKenna Jaster was 13th in the JV standings.
Taylor Moser finished in the top 25 at the Sept. 3 meet at Tri-City Golf Course, in Luana.
Central's JV girls had three runners finish in the top 10 out of 21 runners at MFL MarMac, including Madylen Gregerson, who was seventh.
Brayden Finley ran a personal and career best time of 19:01 at Oelwein on Sept. 1.
Parker Vaughn maneuvers through a group of Decorah runners at Oelwein on Sept. 1.
By Willis Patenaude, Times-Register
The Central Warriors cross country season got underway on Sept. 1, at the Oelwein Huskies Invitational, where Delaney Scherf battled for the victory, defeating 178 other runners. It was a personal best for both the course and her cross country career, with a final time of 20:30.
Several other runners on the girls JV squad also finished with personal course records, including Hannah Asche, who was fourth, and Allie Mussman, who finished 10th, as well as Haley Mueller, Maria Medberry, Miley Wingert and McKenna Jaster. As a team, they ended the meet with a score of 72, finishing second behind Decorah, who scored a 26.
On the boys side, the highest Central finisher was Brayden Finley at 23rd, who ran a personal and career best 19:01. He was followed by Corey Weber (25th), who also ran a personal course and career best, and Parker Vaughn (62nd). The boys did not have enough runners to compete for a team score.
Summing up the race, assistant coach Martha Bauder said, “We did not run any kids in the varsity races, as this was the first race of the year, with a very large number of teams, and it’s nice for teammates to run all together early in the season. There was good weather and a fast, flat course, which helped with so many of our runners achieving personal records. It’s a motivating way to start the season.”
In the second meet of the season, the team traveled to MFL MarMac, where the team was split into varsity and JV. The girls varsity team was led by Asche, who achieved a personal course best 22:09 and finished third out of 33 runners, and Scherf, who finished ninth. Both girls were medalists. Other Warrior runners included Mussman, Taylor Moser, Jaydin Dettman and Medberry, all of whom finished in the top 25.
As a team, the Warriors finished third with a score of 63, behind the Kee Hawks in second with a score of 56 and the Starmont Stars in first with a score of 27.
The JV girls had three runners finish in the top 10 out of 21 runners, including Madylen Gregerson (seventh), Carly Kluesner (eighth) and Eva Embretson (10th). The other runners were Wingert (11th), Jaster (13th) and Maci Kluesner (19th).
In the team competition, only two teams qualified, and the Warriors finished second with a score of 43, while the Starmont Stars took home the top spot with a score of 15.
Turning now to the boys team, on varsity, the Warriors sent out just one runner, Finley, who finished 21st out of 39 runners, while running a personal course best of 20:18.
The Warriors also sent out just a single runner for JV, Vaughn, who finished second out of 16 runners.
Bauder provided post-race comments, saying, “This is traditionally one of our harder courses for the year, so that, along with the wind and running a hard race on Tuesday, our times were a little slower. Competitively, though, we did pretty well, only seven points from second place in the girls varsity race. We know we have a lot of improvement that will take place in the next few weeks.”
The cross country team next travels to Guttenberg for the Clayton Ridge Invitational on Sept. 8, at 4:30 p.m.
