Warhawks finish ninth at state

FORT DODGE – It wasn’t what they were aiming for, but the West Fork boys’ cross country team made its presence felt at the Class 1A state cross country meet in Fort Dodge on Saturday, Nov. 2.

Senior Josh Reiter led the way among six other juniors as the Warhawks finished ninth out of 15 teams at Lakeside Golf Course.

Coach Mark Twedt’s team scored 223 team points as did South Winneshiek, but lost a tiebreaker by virtue of the sixth runner’s score.

“From coming to where they were to here,” Twedt said. “The only thing that bothers me is that some of them are going to be disappointed. I say, ‘no, maybe you’re just not satisfied.’ Any given day, any given time, this is how it is. I thought they ran really well.”

Reiter ran a career best of 17 minutes, 9 seconds to finish at the No. 21 spot, No. 16 in team scoring.

“Josh Reiter has had an outstanding year,” Twedt said. “He started believing in himself this year. First time he really believed in himself.”

Reiter earned his first individual ranking at No. 28 in the second-to-last weekly ratings released by the Iowa Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, but dropped out after the district meet. The organization ranks the top-30 in each class.

“All right,” Reiter said of his race and finish. “I would have liked to finish higher, but I did better than what the rankings said, so I’m pretty happy with that.

“I’m both disappointed and happy with what we’ve done for sure; for sure did a lot better than last year.”

Rounding out team scoring for the Warhawks were Jakob Washington (41), 45 seconds back of Reiter; Noah Maske (50), Ren Heimer (56) and Cail Weaver (60).

“We had a split of little over a minute, and if you look at this team, five of these guys didn’t run for us as freshmen in cross country,” Twedt said. “If you want perspective, at the beginning of the year, no one expected much out of us. I did; I knew we were going to be good, just not how good.”

The tiebreaker finish for West Fork was Trent Despenas’ finish at No. 92 as opposed to South Winn’s Toby Conway (75).

The individual runner for West Fork in the girls’ race was sophomore Kacie Eisentrager, who finished at No. 89 out of 139 in the field.

“Cail Weaver ran hurt today,” Twedt said. “He started out okay, but he’s hurt; but I can’t tell you how proud I am of these guys. This is all of these guys’ first time here. All of them, every one of them. Kacie’s first time (too). So hopefully, we build on this year and the next year and you know, you’ve always got to dream. I have dreams for what these guys can do, I had dreams before the season started, so they didn’t disappoint me at all. Some are disappointed, but overall, it was a great year, awesome year. I can’t argue with that at all.

Reiter, for this being his first and last race at the state cross country meet, can’t complain about the experience, either.

“It was awesome, just like in track, it really didn’t feel real until we got out there and started running,” Reiter said. 
“Awesome it was with all of the spectators and fans.”

2019 Class 1A State Cross Country

Boys Team Scoring

1. Madrid 74; 2. Nodaway Valley 107; 3. Calamus-Wheatland 118; 4. Earlham 119; 5. Maquoketa Valley 209; 6. Denver 211; 7. Council Bluffs St. Albert 223; 8. South Winneshiek 223*; 9. West Fork 223*; 10. Pekin 227; 11. Tri-Center 232; 12. Ogden 247; 13. LeMars Gehlen 254; 14. Mason City Newman 260; 15. St. Ansgar 303.

* denotes tiebreaker

West Fork (223)– 16. Josh Reiter 17:09; 41. Jakob Washington 17:54; 50. Noah Maske 18:02; 56. 18:11; 60. Cail Weaver 18:11; 92. Trent Despenas 19:31; 99. Colin Martinek 20:27.

West Fork girls’ finish– 89. Kacie Eisentrager 21:57.9.