The Atlantic Trojan cross country teams competed at the Hawkeye-10 meet on Thursday, Oct. 15. At the meet held in Denison, both the girls and boys varsity teams placed third. Senior Craig Alan Becker was the individual conference champion.

There were a total of seven runners who received all conference on Thursday. The girls being senior Taylor McCreedy who placed third, sophomore Ava Rush who placed 14th, and freshman Claire Pellett who placed 16th. Earning all conference for the boys was Becker, senior Ethan Williams who came in 16th, and juniors Zane Berg and Drew Engler who placed eighth and 14th respectively.

Finishing out the boys varsity lineup was freshmen Tyrell Williams and Bennett Whetstone as well as senior Devin Wood. The girls lineup was complete with seniors Maddie Botos and Gwen Irlmeier, junior Addie DeArment, and freshman Faith Altman. Top three runners for the boys JV team were freshmen Alex Sonntag and Braden Spurr and junior Issac Altman, who all finished the 5k in under 20 minutes. Freshman Alex Sonntag, who has run both varsity and JV this season, said, “I feel like both the boys and girls made huge improvements throughout the season. It felt good to see that all of our hard work paid off to place really well in a lot of meets.”

The Atlantic Trojan XC account tweeted the results and said, “Now onto the meet that counts.” Sonntag said, “We set goals at the beginning of the season, for ourselves and the team. I personally was shooting to get 21 minutes for the 5k. As the season went on I kept reaching those goals. Now state qualifying is coming up and I’m looking to get 19:30.”

Trojan boys and girls varsity will travel to Winterset on Wednesday, Oct. 21 to compete in the state qualifying meet. This race will determine the remainder of their season. “Our main focus for this Wednesday is to get the teams in the top 3. I’m sure we can do it, but it’s just down to how bad do we want it,” Sonntag said.