SC Cross Country Opens Season at Home
The Southeast Valley cross country teams started the 2025 season on Thursday, August 28th by hosting their own home 17 team Southeast Valley Cross Country Invitational meet. In a meet that usually met with typical Iowa August heat and humidity, the 17 schools that showed up, enjoyed more seasonable temperatures in the low 80s and low humidity.
Both the Jaguar boys and girls’ teams had top ten team finishes. The boys finished 8th overall scoring 203 points while the girls were 9th overall with 194 points. The top three teams in the boys race were East Sac County with 48 points, Greene County with 104 points and Manson NW Webster with 108 points. Madrid won the girls’ race with 41, followed by St. Edmond with 78 and Newell Fonda with 91.
The top finisher for Southeast Valley was senior Lincoln Akins who earned medalist honors finishing 25th overall in a time of 19:54. He was followed by his freshman brother August Akins who was 34th and ran a time of 20:33 in his first 5k of his career. Junior Owen Nuss was the third Jaguar to finish, crossing the line in 20:53 (37th). Another freshman, Jackson Bintz came in next in 51st place in 21:26, followed by senior Ethan Tucker in 56th (22:00).
The 6th and 7th displacement runners for Southeast Valley were sophomore (57th, 22:05) and senior Logan Bintz (59th, 22:07) respectively.
In the girls’ race, senior Katie Field led the Jaguar team. Katie ran a course PR of 25:36 to finish 37th. Junior Ruby Stimpson and freshman Charlie Dorsey who were both competing in their first high school 5k races ran 26:40 (44th) and 28:07 (54th) respectively. Senior Brooke Peterson also ran a course PR in 29:33 (62nd) and sophomore Meia Hefley was the fifth Jag to cross the finish line for the girls in a time of 30:02 (64th).
Also finishing the 5k course on Thursday were Drew Dorsey (66th, 22:40), Kasen Loeffler (69th, 22:49), Blaise Echevarria (74th, 23:01), Carter Ganoe (106th, 25:20), Oliver Riehl (119th, 27:36), Carter Lloyd (123rd, 27:50), Evan Kuhn (133rd, 28:44), Jacob Wicklein (142nd, 30:53), Max Judson (143rd, 32:43), Mason Newell (144th, 34:09), Kaleb Klein (145th, 36:14), and Logan Urelius (146th, 46:59).
Coach Nuss would like to thank the Gowrie Golf Course for the use of the course to host the meet on Thursday, as well as the numerous volunteers that put time in effort into hosting the meet, rather it was helping to painting the course, being a course judge or helping at the finish line, not to mention thank you for all the support from our community members for being out their and cheering everyone on rather you were a family member supporting an athlete or just someone who came out to support our students. It was a great atmosphere for the athletes to start off their season.
The Jaguars will compete again on Tuesday, September 2nd at the Lynx Golf Course in Webster City and then again on Thursday, September 11th when Greene County hosts their meet at Spring Lake (This is a change in location from the original schedule).