Comets look to disrupt Viking dominance at NEIC Cross Country Meet

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Comets girls cross country team is in a similar situation as the Chicago Cubs.

This is supposed to be their year.

So no pressure there.

“I’m excited,” Comets head coach Amanda Rahmiller said about next Tuesday’s Northeast Iowa Conference Meet in Oelwein. “It’s going to be an exciting race. It’s a special time for this program. I feel like we prepared to take that next step forward.”

Charles City hasn’t won a NEIC meet in 14 years. For the last 12 years, Decorah has been the champs.

“Christy (Nimrod) has built a great program over there,” Rahmiller said of Decorah’s head coach. “When she speaks about cross country, I always stretch my ear to hear what she’s saying … to see if I could pick up something.

“She’s also a physical education teacher in the school, and she does a great job in recognizing talent.”

When Rahmiller took over the Comet girls program four years ago, she also recognized talent … a group of incoming freshman that she coached in middle school.

Much of that remaining group are seniors, and the last runs of their cross country careers may be their most glorious.

“This is definitely the year we’ve been looking forward to,” Rahmiller said, “and winning conference again after so many years is definitely one of our goals.”

Charles City has run against Decorah in numerous meets, most recently at the Bobcat Invitational hosted by Western Dubuque where the Comets placed third while Decorah placed fifth.

“But they had one of their top runners out,” Rahmiller said. “That still was a good meet for us.”

Though the Vikings have won a string of conference titles, Charles City senior McKayla Cole has a string of her own with two-straight individual titles.

Cole, who placed third in the Class 3A state meet last year, pretty much dominated the field for her cross country titles.

It won’t be as easy this time around.

“I’m nervous but I’m excited,” Cole said. “I can’t wait to go head-to-head with her again.”

Cole is referring to Ellie Friesen, who transferred to Crestwood from Osage this school year.

At the Charles City Invitational held at Wildwood Golf Municipal Golf Course to start the season, Cole and Friesen were neck-and-neck pacing the field for most of the race with Cole holding a slight lead. It wasn’t until down the homestretch that Friesen overtook Cole with a final kick to win the race.

Though she placed second, Cole’s 5K time of 18 minutes and 47 seconds was a personal-best and has remained a season-best. It wasn’t until this past Tuesday’s Wolverine Invitational at Fox Ridge Golf Course in Dike that Cole got under 19 minutes again.

“And she did it all by herself,” Rahmiller said. “She didn’t have anyone near her to push her.”

“That race gave me a little more confidence,” Cole said of her Wolverine Invite performance. “I know running against (Friesen) should make me run even harder.”

With sophomore Whitney Martin, who placed eighth at the Wolverine Invite with a sub-20-minute time, and freshman MacKenzy Bilharz; Cole and fellow seniors Sarah Turpen, Alysha Bilharz and Bailey Mitchell will likely be among the “Comet 7” for the varsity race at Oelwein.

As freshmen, Turpen and Bilharz helped the Comets take sixth at state — Cole didn’t go out for country country until her sophomore year.

“It would be nice if we can all make it down as a team our senior year,” Mitchell said. “It’s going to be sad when it’s all over. I have so many great memories with this team. Getting to state our last year together would be another one.”

For Charles City’s junior varsity runners, the upcoming conference meet will be in essence their state meet.

“You can make all-conference in junior varsity if you finish in the Top 10,” Rahmiller said. “Last year, we had four girls make JV all-conference, which was encouraging because in years’ past Decorah would usually sweep all 10 spots.”

Of course, Rahmiller may choose to shuffle her varsity lineup for the subsequent state qualifier, Oct. 20 in Decorah.

“But if all seven of my varsity girls run well at conference, it will make my job a lot easier,” she said.

Throughout the year, Rahmiller has bumped several junior varsity runners up when their times bested varsity teammates.

“It’s one of the toughest things to do … tell a girl I’m moving her down to junior varsity,” Rahmiller said. “Usually, they’ll come right back and run a better time.”

Though Cole will likely finish in the top two, a conference championship for the Comets will likely depend on how well the following six will place.

“We like them to finish close in a group with few runners between them,” Rahmiller said. “In addition to Decorah, there’s going to be talented runners from Waverly-Shell Rock and Crestwood so we don’t know who might slip in between them.”

Though the Comets are due to lose a lot of experienced talent due to graduation, they’re not going to be stripped bare. In addition to sophomore Mariah McKenzie, who was the seventh runner helping Charles City’s varsity team win the Wolverine Invite; there are junior Gillian King and freshman Ingrid Hernandez, who placed one-two, respectively, in the invite’s junior varsity race helping the Comets’ win that one, too.

“And we have Kiki Connell coming next year,” Rahmiller said of the Charles City Middle School eighth-grader, who periodically resets the school’s 2-mile record for girls meet after meet.

“It’s nice to have that one girl you can always count on to place for you, and then this year have a strong group backing her up,” Rahmiller said. “They’re hard to replace, but we still have a lot of hope for the future.”

Next year may be finally here, but there’s still next year.