Central cross country keeps up fast start with first individual win of season
Jaydin Dettman raced to 14th place at the Oelwein Invitational, then took the top spot two days later, in a meet hosted by MFL MarMac. (Photo by Bev Hamann)
Hannah Asche powered her way to fourth place in the Sept. 1 MFL MarMac Invitational. That success followed up a seventh place finish at Oelwein two days prior. (Photo by Audrey Posten)
Delaney Scherf posted a 33rd place finish at Oelwein on Aug. 30. (Photo by Bev Hamann)
Reese Berns finished 16th in the JV race at Oelwein. (Photo by Bev Hamann)
Gavin Holst was the top finisher for the Warriors at Oelwein, finishing second in the JV race. (Photo by Bev Hamann)
Collin Jaster had the second best boys time for Central in the Sept. 1 meet at Tri City Golf Course in Luana. He placed 20th. (Photo by Audrey Posten)
By Willis Patenaude, Times-Register
It was another good week of weather for the Central cross country team, leading to some early season success,
That started at the Aug. 30 Oelwein Invitational, where nearly half the team members had either a season best or career best run.
Career best times were achieved by Eva Embretson, Jaydin Dettman, Aspen Rork, Brooke Tieden and Caden Fette, while those having season best times were the aforementioned runners plus Delaney Scherf, Hannah Asche, Reese Berns, Alexis Thiese and Tate Berns.
Heading into the invitational, coaches Mark and Martha Bauder made the decision to compete mostly in the JV race, however, they sent out three runners in the girls varsity race: Scherf, Asche and Dettman. Asche was the top runner with a seventh place finish, while Dettman came in 14th and Scherf 33rd.
“The meet has so many kids and larger class schools. At this early stage of the season and our conditioning, we’re still working on building many of our kids up to the varsity level times,” Bauder explained.
In the team competition, the JV girls finished sixth of 11 teams, which would have been first among just 1A teams. The Warriors’ top runners were Reese Berns, who finished 16th, and Embretson in 22nd.
The JV boys squad placed sixth out of 15 complete teams and also would have been first of 1A teams. Gavin Holst crossed the finish line second in 19:02, less than 10 seconds behind the race winner and well ahead of runners from larger schools. Fette finished 56th and Vaughn Zittergruen was 59th.
The Sept. 1 meet at MFL MarMac extended the streak of success with a race win and some fast times that haven’t been seen at Central in a few years.
In the boys race, Holst, Zittergruen, Collin Jaster, Bryce Heller, Michael White and Declan Finley all ran career best times, with Holst finishing fifth place in a time of 17:55. That is the fastest time for a Central boys season since 2016. The next highest finisher for the Warriors was Jaster, who came in 20th.
But it was the girls race that capped off the week, with a winning performance for Dettman, who became the first individual champion in quite a few years. She won the race in a career best time of 20:31 and also set a new Central girls record for the course, besting Ciera Deitchler’s time of 21:04 from 2016.
The race, which Bauder said was “exciting right from the start,” saw Asche and Dettman pull out to a big lead, with Scherf close in the third/fourth spot for much of the race. However, Asche struggled with a sore hip and fell slightly off the pace, but battled hard to stay in the race and finished fourth, just ahead of Scherf in fifth.
The race also produced two other top-20 runners, with Embretson coming in 15th and Reese Berns 18th. Both runners ran personal best times for the season. In fact, Central had 17 team members with season best performances.
The cross country team looks to continue that success with two meets this week, starting on Sept. 6 at the Guttenberg Golf Course, then at NFV on Sept. 8.
