One of the toughest competitors of the 2026 cross country season is starting to be Mother Nature as rain has started to cause many cross country meets to be cancelled or postponed. Southeast Valley cross country teams had their meet at Panorama cancelled a week ago and when Roland Story cancelled their meet for this week, the Jaguars had to pivot and got the opportunity to run a new course at Guthrie Center. Thursday, September 24th saw the Jaguars competing at the Charger Invitational hosted by ACGC.  

In the girls’ race, junior Emily Wilson in her first year of cross country, continued to improve. Her time of 24:04, 51st, was the 13th fastest in school history for the girls. Charlie Dorsey also improved her season best time finishing 25:52 for 74th. Finishing 85th was Ruby Stimpson in a time of 26:15. Freshman Adelle Fors dropped nearly five minutes from her first race to cross the finish line in 26:31 for 90th. Meia Hefley was the final Jaguar for the girls’ team, running a season best 28:58 for 117th.  

The girls finished 15th overall in the team standings. Class 2A, #3 ranked West Marshall on the meet with 58 points, followed by Winterset with 74 points and Class 3A #10 Ballard with 80 points.

On the boys’ side of things, Southeast Valley was able to find fifth place overall in the team standings with 178 points. Class 1A #5 Baxter was the team champion with 63 points. Class 3A teams Winterset was second with 72 points, Nevada was third with 85 points and Ballard was fourth with 108 points.

Senior Owen Nuss continued to pace the Jaguars with a season best time of 18:16 for 22nd place and August Akins’ 18:30 (27th) place was a career best time. Griff Vote ran a 19:01 for 44th place while his brother Landon was right behind him in 45th place with a season best of 19:05. Kasen Loeffler also had a career best time, finishing in 19:04 for 46th overall.

Grant Peterson kept the PR train rolling when he finished in 19:51 (70th) and Wyatt Blair in his first meet ever, finished the 5k course in 20:00.30 for 73rd.

Several other members of the boys’ cross country team on Thursday and either set season bests or career PRs. Running careers PRs on Thursday were Carter Lloyd (142nd, 23:17), Turner Ahlers (162nd, 24:15), Eli Rude (163rd, 24:19), Mason Newell (167th, 24:34), Moses Cunigan (194th, 26:43) and Jace Skoglund (209th, 34:36).

Jacob Wicklein set a season best (197th, 27:47) and just missing season PRs by a handful of seconds were Jackson Bintz (86th, 20:39), Henry Sandstrom (93rd, 20:54) and Max Judson (201st, 29:31).

“We had a really great night on Thursday,” commented Coach Nuss. “Changes in schedule, rainy practices, a new challenging course with a light rain, it’s been hard for our athletes to keep focus, but we as coaches were proud of how the athletes showed up and competed on Thursday. We weren’t sure how they were going to respond, but to come away with 17 season PRs and 14 career PRs on that course and in those conditions was exciting.”

The Jaguars are slowly wrapping up the season as they will be competing in their final two regular meets of the season at Pocahontas on Saturday, October 3rd and in Lake City on Tuesday, October 6th before heading back to Pocahontas on Thursday, October 15th.