WEBSTER CITY LYNX CROSS COUNTRY RESULTS

CLASS 3A STATE MEET – OCTOBER 29, 2005

KENNEDY PARK-FT. DODGE

 

GIRLS RESULTS                    W.T.-15:00                             

Kelsey Tompkins                        45th-16:26                 

 

IATC ACADEMIC ALL STATE TEAM

Kelsey Tompkins

(Requirements:  28 or higher ACT, 3.8 or higher GPA, State Qualifying Senior)

 

 

BOYS RESULTS                    W.T.-16:31                  TEAM SCORES

Chris Wardell                               4th-16:42                  Mt. Vernon                              84

Jesse Ogg                                   49th-17:53                  Dubuque Wahlert                     104

Nick Barnes                               70th-18:24                  Charles City                             177

Aaron Bieker                              80th-18:34                  Marion                                     236

Ben Lambert                              87th-18:40                  Cedar Rapids Xavier                255

Alex Flege                                106th-18:56                  Decorah                                   270

Drew Hunt                               127th-20:56                  Waukon                                   285

                                                                                    Webster City                            290

CLASS 3A ALL STATE TEAM                                 Sioux City Heelan                     308

Chris Wardell                                                               Garner-Hayfield                        332

                                                                                    Spirit Lake Park                       336

                                                                                    Atlantic                         348

                                                                                    Knoxville                                  351

                                                                                    Shenandoah-Essex                   353

                                                                                    Pella                                         472

 

COACH BUSSAN’S COMMENTS:  Kelsey ran a strong race.  In particular, she finished her final half mile moving up several positions.  An indication that this was a quality race is the fact that she had the 4th best performance of all our district qualifiers after finishing 8th at the district meet.  Kelsey also had the top performance time wise of all participating members of the North Central Conference.  Kelsey has been a leader for us for four years and finished off a great high school career with a good race.  She is considering competing at the collegiate level with Central College, currently leading the list of schools she is considering.  We were also notified last week that Kelsey earned Academic All State status.  The requirements for that award are among the strictest of any sport.

 

Our boys team finish of 8th represents considerable improvement over the course of our season.  To start out where we did at the beginning of the year and then finish in the top ten certainly is to the credit of the boys.  That being said, we continued to suffer from our inability to run a consistent scoring pack.  Chris Wardell had an outstanding race while Jesse Ogg and Aaron Bieker had solid performances compared to past races.  Our other squad members struggled through the middle of the race and were off their game.  The potential of this team was indicated by the fact that at districts we were only four points behind Charles City who went on to earn a 3rd place finish at state.  While we came up short of our potential, we still can be pleased with how far we did come as a team this season.  Chris Wardell ran the race we felt he needed to despite the extremely windy conditions.  He took the lead immediately and continued to lead for 2 ˝ miles of the race.  After carrying all the workload into the wind, he battled tough before being passed by the two Wahlert athletes.  Late in the race, Isaac Wendland used his exceptional kicking ability to pass Chris as well as the two Wahlert athletes.  Chris’ 4th place finish improves upon his finish of 5th a year ago.  He is the first Webster City cross country athlete to earn two All State awards with top 5 finishes in each race.  Chris currently plans to attend Iowa Central Community College next year and compete for their track and cross country teams.  Jesse Ogg did a nice job of moving up through the field from the midpoint on and had quite a bit left as he kicked to the finish.  His performance represented an improvement of 44 places over his race at state a year ago.  Aaron Bieker also moved forward throughout the second half of the race and did a great job of becoming our #4 runner when our athletes struggled.  Our other guys just were not able to have the type of race they hoped for but they still came to the meet with a good focus and high goals.  Seniors Chris Wardell, Nick Barnes and Drew Hunt accomplished a great many of their goals this season and can take pride that they were able to carry on many of the traditions of our program during their careers.  Jesse, Aaron, Ben and Alex will return next season. Along with a few of our J.V and middle school athletes, they will take on the same responsibility of keeping our program at the highest levels in the conference and the state.