Central Lee's Amanda Gilpin 2nd in B girls run; FMHS' Paetyn Wiegand takes fourth in girls' A run.
BY CHUCK VANDENBERG
PCC EDITOR
FORT MADISON - Fort Madison junior Will Gager said he's happy to be running.
He was so happy that he motored to a 2nd place finish in the boys A division at Thursday's Timm Lamb Invitational held for the third year in a row at Fort Madison Middle School, after moving from Rodeo Arena in 2018 due to flooding.
Gager finished at 17.04.8 with a 5:31 pace behind Washington's Lance Sobaski, who had a speedy 16:42.8 and a 5:24 pace.
Gager said he's just out running and trying to make the most out of each run because he wasn't sure there would even be a season.
"It felt really nice. I'm not sure the coach changed things or not, but it felt really good running as a team today," he said.
"At the beginning I felt really glad we could experience this again. Going into the season I didn't know if we'd even have a home meet. But seeing my team coming up behind me today, that was just the best."
Gager said catching Sobaski wasn't on his mind.
"I don't really care who's in front of me, I'm just tying to get to state. Hopefully there is a state, but that's my goal."
He said his 17:04 was his personal best on the Middle School course.
Austin Miller was second across for the Hounds at 17:26.0 and had a nice push to the finish line to pass about seven runners in the final 400 meters.
"I wasn't feeling very well on the first lap and then I saw Will and wanted to get as close to him as I could so I just kicked it into gear," Miller said
The boys finished second overall with 63 points, 14 behind front runner Muscatine. The Muskies had three of the top seven runners.
After Miller, senior Anthony Barnes took 12th place, and Hayden Wolfe came across in 17th and then Fort Madison slipped to 26th when Nathan Bowen crossed the barrier to round out the scoring runners for the Hounds.
Tate Settles was 33rd and Alex Steffensmeier finished 44th.
Paetyn Wiegand, just a freshman this year leading the Hound varsity runners, said she needs to work on her kick before the finish. She said she starts that at about 400 meters, but Thursday she fell a bit short.
Wiegan finished in fourth place overall with a time of 21:44.7, just 31 seconds off the pace of Fairfield freshman Malena Bloomquist.
"In practice we train to not get beat at the finish line and today I didn't do that very well," Wiegand said. "That's something I still need to work on.
Two Muscatine girls finished 2nd and 3rd just 3 seconds apart as the Muskies took the girls Division A title with 46 points. Fort Madison finished fifth with 79 points.
Jordyn Burch was second across for the Lady Hounds with a time of 23:06.4 good enough for 14th place overall. Ellie Schulte and Raquel Schneider finished 18th and 19th overall. Maddie Rashid finished 24th to round out the scoring runners for the Fort Madison. Lily Scott and Mylah Blanchard were 27th and 28th for the Hounds.
Central Lee's Amanda Gilpen set a new personal best for the third year at the Fort Madison run and finished 2nd in the 3-team B division.
"This year has been a quite a bit easier. Our coach is marathon runner and he's been having us do sprint workouts and things and changing things up a bit," she said.
Gilpen's time of 21:10.2, was a full 1:31 off the pace set by Danville-New London senior Addison Parrott.
"I was trying to maintain a speed like her, Obviously I can't do that. Hopefully in the conference meet I'll be able to catch up with he," she said.
The Hawks Brianna Gruntmeir and Addy Brumble finished 19th and 20th. Sidney Gruntmeir came across in 22. Adrienne Britt was 26th overall and Emmy Liu finished in 33rd place.
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