Kiki Connell wins first SQ; Comet girls to make 4th-straight trip to Fort Dodge

By John Burbridge
sports@charlescitypress.com
INDEPENDENCE — It has been said that the best thing about freshmen is they become sophomores.

That may apply to basketball and football, but for girls cross country, maturity tends to be a speed bump.

Far too often upstart freshmen will outgrow their personal-bests well before graduation. Charles City junior Kiki Connell thought she might be falling back with that aging pack.

“After last year’s state meet, I was very upset,” said Connell, who placed sixth as a freshman at state despite running most of the race with just one shoe, but finished well out of medal range as a sophomore. “I thought that was it for me … my best was behind me.”

Connell couldn’t turn back the clock to where she was a freshman again, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t wind back the stopwatch and start recording PB’s again.

“I was determined to work extra hard during the summer to come back stronger than ever,” said Connell, who is amidst her best season as a Comet.

Nine days removed after winning her first Northeast Iowa Conference title with a school-record 5K time of 18 minutes, 30 seconds, Connell managed to out-battle Dubuque Wahlert junior Gabby Moran and Iowa Falls-Alden junior Ellie Meyer down the stretch to win the varsity girls race at the Independence Class 3A State Qualifier, Thursday at the Independence Mental Health Institute XC Course.

Connell’s time of 19:01 bettered runner-up Moran by a half-second and third-place finisher Meyer by about 2.5 seconds.

Not considered a fast course which was made even slower with shoe-sucking wet terrain in low-lying sections, the finish line was sadistically placed on top of a small hill. But that’s where Connell sealed her first SQ victory.

“That’s where I used my arms,” Connell said. “I’ve learned that your arms can be more important than your legs.”

Well, you still need legs. And for a while, Charles City senior Mackenzy Bilharz only had one good one.

Sidelined for three weeks due to a strained ACL knee injury, Bilharz just started running in earnest again on Monday.

“I thought my season was over,” said Bilharz, who will be making her fourth-straight trip to Fort Dodge for the State Cross Country Championships after qualifying as an individual with a 13th-place time 20:22 while helping the Comet girls qualify as a team — their fourth-straight punched ticket — after placing third with 75 team points behind team champion Dubuque Wahlert (26) and runner-up Decorah (63) .

“I knew this could be my last cross country race, so I gave it my all,” Bilharz said.

“She was the hero of the day,” Charles City girls head coach Amanda Rahmiller said of Bilharz. “What she did was amazing.”

Comet sophomore Lydia Staudt qualified for state as an individual for the second straight year after placing ninth with a time of 20:06.

Other runners helping the Comets qualify as a team were senior Mindi Neve (17th, 20:42), junior Libby McKeag (35th, 21:59), junior Monika Kacprzak (39th, 22:07) and junior Lydia Thompson (41st, 22:10).

Charles City’s boys team placed fifth out of 13 teams with 159 team points. Senior Luke Smith was the first Comet in with a 25th-place time of 17:53, followed by senior Phillip Bachman (27th, 18:02), junior Alex Bauer (31st, 18:06), sophomore Clayton Rand (35th, 18:12), junior Zach Graeser (41st, 18:22), senior Hayden Pleggenkuhle (44th, 18:26) and sophomore Jacob Vais (67th, 19:45).

“Our average time is the fastest it has been for the past five years,” Charles City boys coach Ryan Rahmiller said. “Our guys run in a very tight group.

“We’re just looking for that guy who can get into the 16s. We’ve had that before with Gavin (Connell), Mason (Deeter) and Nick (Litterer) … now will need to find someone else.”

Decorah junior Brady Hogan won the varsity boys race with a time of 16:40, a little less than 10 seconds ahead of runner-up Jack Renning, a senior at Xavier.

With 41 team points, Dubuque Wahlert also won the boys race followed by team qualifiers Decorah (55) and Marion (78).