Warhawks miss in defense of TIC title

OSAGE – In an attempt to defend its Top of Iowa Conference title, the circumstances were much different than 2020 for the West Fork cross country team.

The Warhawks lost one to graduation, one to another sport and lost the venue it regularly ran the meet in due to COVID-19 concerns.

Plus, coach Mark Twedt’s top finisher, Cail Weaver, on Thursday, Oct. 15 rolled his ankle on the second lap around Osage’s Mitchell County Nature Reserve.

“Back when we were in the trees, I came out of a downhill and there were rocks everywhere going down these hills and I stepped on one and rolled it, and it hurt for a while, but I had to push through it,” Cail Weaver said. “Yeah, I’ll definitely be sore later. It’s nothing too serious, I just tweaked it. Other than that, I’m fine.

“Honestly, as soon as I rolled my ankle, I fell back pretty hard, but I knew there was only so much left, so right before I got back to the turn back (around the building) there, I started to pick it up.”

He finished seventh for first team all-conference.

His teammate, Jakob Washington, had a tight finish with a St. Ansgar runner to finish eighth. Weaver credited Washington for helping him through.

“I think it really helped having Jakob with us again,” Weaver said. “I started to fall back, and Jakob picked me up. He put his hand on my back and I knew that I had to stay with him. We started battling back and forth, it helps having him with me. With him, it’s easier to run, knowing Noah and Sage, they run together throughout the race, so we take off of each other, so that really helps. Overall, it looks pretty good.”

This year West Fork finished among third with 77 points in the team race behind Mason City Newman (57) and Central Springs (69).

Weaver also said that the Warhawks liked to run in the temperatures that were running on the cool side during the meet: 50s with a brisk wind that had a real feel of upper-40s.

“I think overall, we will be all right,” Weaver said. “Personally, most of our team likes running in the cold weather, so we benefit from it. We have to adapt from being in warm clothes to our uniform, throughout the race, we don’t feel it that much. It’s a lot nicer running in cold weather.”

West Fork will run at Manly this week for the state qualifying meet, trying to make a return trip to Fort Dodge, as well. More cold weather is expected for that meet, as well.

“I think we’re going to run phenomenal,” Weaver said. “We ran there once and didn’t run there earlier in the year, but it was really, really hot. I think we run better in the cold anyway, so we could run really well.”

In the girls’ race, Kacie Eisentrager was the top finish for the Warhawks, third in 21 minutes, 59.29 seconds behind Nashua-Plainfield’s Chloe Matthews and Katelyn Johnston of Osage for first team all-conference. The Warhawk girls were also third (88) behind Newman (44) and N-P (60).

Twedt said that he expects a little better at Manly.

“We had some kids do well,” Twedt said, “but as a team, we need to run much better for districts.”

2020 Top of Iowa East Conference

Girls Team Scoring

1. Mason City Newman 44; 2. Nashua-Plainfield 60; 3. West Fork 88; 4. Osage 102; 5. St. Ansgar 116; 6. North Butler 170.

West Fork (88) – 3. Kacie Eisentrager 21:59.29; 16. RaeLynn Nash 23:25.75; 18. Olivia Jones 23:49.13; 23. Jordan Swenson 24:17.12; 28. Mycah Weaver 24:56.55; 31. Madelynn Welbus 25:37.53.

Boys Team Scoring

1. Mason City Newman 57; 2. Central Springs 69; 3. West Fork 77; 4. St. Ansgar 116; 5. North Butler 118; 6. Northwood-Kensett 133; 7. Osage 158; 8. Nashua-Plainfield 193.

West Fork (77)– 7. Cail Weaver 18:26.96; 8. Jakob Washington 18:28.56; 13. Sage Suntken 19.01.78; 16. Noah Maske 19:09.04; 33. Colin Martinek 20:44.61; 39. Austin Atlick 22:08.20; 40. Ethan Shields 22:10.86; 54. Josh Hagen 23:23.63; 58. Sander Tompkins 23:33.83; 60. Blake White 23:41.25; 61. Jake Swenson 24:28.00; 62. Edison Maske 24:35.23.