Okoboji, Ia (KICD) – Spirit Lake and Okoboji hosted the first Iowa Great Lakes Cross Country meet Thursday at Brooks Golf Club in Okoboji. The two schools previously hosted their own meets with Okoboji at Emerald Hills and Spirit Lake at Brooks but decided to merge the meets. The merger immediately made this meet one of the premiers in the state of Iowa, Spencer Coach Drew Schiltz said the Tigers were comparing it to another large meet that they run in.

The races were split up into class A and Class B. The Classes made no difference to West Bend-Mallard’s Tyra Schupbach, as the Junior scorched the competition, throwing down a personal best time of 19:17.86 to win Class B. Schupbach talked about her first time on the Brooks Course.

The rest of the top 5 included Sioux Central’s Linnea Bloom at 21:44.37, North Union’s Jacey Welbig at 21:45.03, Sioux Central’s Nora Christian at 21:48.69, and North Union’s Alexis Cummins with a time of 22:21.46.

Sioux Central won Class B with 23 points, West Bend-Mallard was 2nd with 40, and Emmetsburg placed 3rd with 72.

In the Class A race, Sioux Center’s Audrina Jones won with a time of 19:51.85. Spencer’s Peyton Morey was 2nd at 19:57.34. Morey did her best to stick with jones throughout the race.

Storm Lake’s Silvia Kampbell was the only other KICD area runner in the top 10, placing 7th with a time of 20:36.78.

In the Boys Class B race, Ben Byers of Sibley-Ocheyedan took the individual title, clocking 16:54.75. Lucos Wernimont of Sioux Central was 2nd at 17:10.01, Sibley-Ocheyedan’s David Poppen took 3rd at 18:24.42 followed by Sioux Central’s Leighton Sippel in 4th at 18:34.24, and Emmetsburg’s Krayton Rutledge in 5th at 18:42.14.

Sioux Central took the Class B team title with 29 points, Sibley-Ocheyedan was 2nd with 48, and Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn placed 3rd at 84.

Spirit Lake’s Brandon Hughes pulled away from the pack in the second half of the race, winning with a time of 16:20.03 in Class A.

Hughes’ teammate Dietrich Dirks was 2nd at 16:38.63, then it was Storm Lake’s Joel Ramirez-Parra in 3rd with 16:44.05. Spirit Lake’s Jace Hungerford was 5th, Evan Osler of Okoboji took 7th, and Trigg Heimdal of Okoboji was 9th.

Forest City won the Class A boys team title with 66 points, then it was Spirit Lake with 73 and MOC-Floyd Valley in 3rd with 94.

Spencer placed 6th with 155 points. Carson Krogman led the Tigers with a time of 17:49.38 to place 20th.

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