By Justice Parker
Saturday, November 2nd marked the end of the cross country season when Fort Dodge held Iowa’s state meet. Sophomore Tiffany Williams was the only Atlantic participant. However, 7 Varsity girls joined Williams on her trial for a win. Williams ended 24th out of 120 runners in the 3A category. Compared to last year’s state results, Williams improved her time by 30 seconds and 38 places better. There were a total of 10 meets, which were hosted in Glendwood, Clarinda, Creston, Perry, Red Oak for both a regular meet and the conference meet, Kuemper, Adair-Casey, and Atlantic. Both Varsity boys and girls ran in Winterset for districts, to see which teams or individuals would make it to state.
To officially wrap-up the season, on Monday, November 4th Atlantic High School held the annual cross country banquet. Some fun traditions that occur are when the seniors give a selection of the underclassmen gifts for being unique. Such as, Senior Adam Wieser gave Ben Parker a cookie monster stuffed animal because he always wants to hug someone. Also, the senior boys gave junior Zach Brooks a whip for next year so he can “whip the freshman into shape.” Assistant Coach Ashley Moiser gave some runners candy names. For example, junior Savannah Sorensen was a crunch bar because she “crunches” up tough hills. Junior Mollee Welter was a Laffy Taffy because she was always giddy and laughing. Sophomore Isabel Kesterson was the Dove chocolate because she is always the peace maker.
Sophomore William Weppler said, “I thought it went okay but I think we can do a lot better next year.”
Sophomore David Thompsen replied, “I give it a big ole 10.”
Sophomore Cooper Zablocki said, “I think it went pretty amazing. Shoutout to the cross country runners for running their hearts out.”
Below are the cross country season’s results for individual times and team rankings overall.