Comet girls are ‘all in”

Charles City bests top two teams in the state to win district title

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

DECORAH — Though she was right in her ear, Whitney Martin gave little indication that she even heard her.

“We’re going to state! We’re going to state!” Charles City senior McKayla Cole repeated emphatically to her sophomore teammate.

Martin didn’t even nod as she just wrapped her arms around Cole and the next nearest person standing upright to stay upright herself.

Cole herself needed similar assistance after finishing fourth with a 5K time of 19 minutes and 4 seconds at the the Class 3A Girls Cross Country State Qualifying Meet held Thursday at Oneota Golf and Country Club. Martin finished seventh (19:43)

“I heard what she was saying,” Martin said. “My legs were hurting too much to celebrate.”

The end of the meet brought a lot of pain for the Charles City girls team, but no tears, which was an improvement from last year.

“We were all crying then,” said Comet senior Sarah Turpen, who placed 15th (20:20) for the last qualifying individual spot. “We thought we should have made it down as a team last year, and when we didn’t, we felt that we underachieved.”

That sure wasn’t the case this time around. Not only did the Comet girls punch their ticket to the state meet to be held Oct. 29 in Fort Dodge, they bested the two top ranked teams in the state — Wahlert Catholic and Decorah — in winning the SQ.

“We knew it was going to be close,” Charles City girls coach Amanda Rahmiller said after her team edged runner-up and meet host Decorah by six points (72-78) and Wahlert by eight.

Last week, Decorah continued its string of Northeast Iowa Conference Meet championships after edging past Charles City, spoiling the Comets’ end-of-season goal to disrupt the Vikings’ reign.

“Right now, this is pretty awesome,” Rahmiller said, “but the highlight of the season will be if we can make it to the podium at Fort Dodge.”

Like Turpen, Alysha Bilharz was on the last Comet state qualifying team in 2013 when they were both freshmen.

“I think this team has a much better chance at placing higher,” said Bilharz, who helped the Comets take sixth four years ago.

On Thursday, Bilharz placed 30th (21:19). Her younger sister, freshman Mackenzy Bilharz, placed 21st (20:41)

“We have way more experience than the team back then,” said Bailey Mitchell, who was also a Comet cross country freshman in 2013.

Mitchell placed 25th (20:56). Charles City sophomore Mariah Mackenzy, who worked her way onto the Comets’ varsity squad late in the season, placed 42nd (21:42).

Overall girls champion was Adrianna Katcher (18:29) of Center Point-Urbana. Sophia Gilbert (18:53) of Benton Community and Ellie Friesen (18:54) of Crestwood were the next runners in ahead of Cole.

The bus carrying the Comet girls team got a police escort back into Charles City. It was a fitting way to honor its accomplishment.

But for Charles City junior Gavin Connell, he thought those making the trip to Decorah should be honored, also.

“That’s at least a one hour drive … an hour and a half for some people,” Connell said. “If they’re going to come all the way out to support us, I thought to make it worthwhile.”

Connell placed fifth with a time of 16:56.

“I didn’t really care about my time … I just wanted to make it down again,” said Connell, who qualified for state for the third straight time. “There are not too many people who can say they made it down three times. Even fewer for four times, but that’s what I plan to do.”

Connell was battling Decorah’s Gus Hayes for the lead midway through the race.

“But I knew Gus was going to make his move soon,” Connell said.

With a time of 16:41, Hayes finished second to Wahlert’s Davis Flogel (16:36). Andrew Kephart of Decorah and Jonathon Lansing of Xavier placed third and fourth respectively.

“This course starts out flat and ends with hills,” Connell said. “Our coach (Ryan Rahmiller) told us that everyone will be flying out for the first mile, but the last mile will make a man out of you. Coming up that last 100 yards, I didn’t want to lose my spot and I’m glad I didn’t let anyone pass me.”

Mason Deeter (17:48, 29th), Nick Litterer (17:49, 30th), Adam Stewart (18:38, 56th), Hayden Pleegenkuhle (18:49, 62nd), John Perez (18:53, 63rd) and Phillip Bachman (19:09, 72nd) rounded out the scoring for Charles City, which placed seventh.

Meet champion Xavier (62 team points), Decorah (64) and Wahlert (97) all advanced to state.

“We’re sending one man down, but I don’t even think I’ll have to ask these guys to come out and train with Gavin next week,” Ryan Rahmiller said. “Most of them will probably go down there with him, too. It will be a good learning experience for them.

“The big picture is that we’re a young team that’s going to have a lot of exciting things happen to it in the future. Take Nick Litterer … he dropped three minutes this year alone.”