Solon Completes Dream Season With First Ever State Title
Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports
FORT DODGE – Balance. Depth. Pack running.
Call it whatever you chose but running together left Solon all alone atop Class 3A.
Led by top-10 finishes from Kayla Young and Emma Bock top-ranked Solon put four runners in the top 33 overall while claiming the first state title in program history on Friday on a cool and breezy afternoon at Lakeside Golf Course in Fort Dodge.
“This is everything we’ve wanted since the very beginning, since our very first practice this has been our goal,” Bock said. “We all just wanted it for each other. None of us want to disappoint any of us so we did it for each other.”
Young finished fifth and Bock was ninth to lead three Solon runners in the top 20 as the Spartans finished with 77 points to easily outdistance two-time defending state champion Ballard.
Sophomore Anna Quillin was 19th overall and senior Meghan O’Neill was 33rd as Solon climbed improved its state meet finish for the fourth consecutive season.
“It’s everything that we have been working toward this entire season and we did it together,” Young said. “We are one big family and we did this together. That’s what makes it so much better.”
A team built around depth, Solon used the same formula that pushed it to the top of the Class 3A rankings to outdistance the field at the biggest meet of the season.
The top five finishers for the Spartans all placed in the top 43 overall in the 133-member field.
Ballard was second with 103 points while Dallas Center-Grimes was third with 127.
“We talked about it today and we did have two in the top 10 which we haven’t done in I can’t even tell you how long but it is that depth that we have that makes us special,” Solon coach Emy Williams said. “We told them they were going to have to find each other because that’s how we’ve run all season and by mile one they had all found each other and we knew we were going to be o.k.”
Young, Bock and Quillin were separated by just five places at the one-mile mark.
For a team that sticks together on and off the course that was of course the pre-race plan.
The Spartans executed that plan to perfection.
“We knew that we had to stay together, we picked out our uniforms today so we could see each other and find each other and stay together,” Quillin said. “Talking before the race we said that we had to work together and use each other because when we run together we run at our best and we push each other the most.”
Depth was the overwhelming strength for Solon from the start.
On Friday Young and Bock showed the Spartans also had a pair of front of the pack runners.
Young finished fifth overall in a time of 19:19.68 in her state meet debut just more than three seconds off the pace of fourth-place finisher Emily Haverdink of MOC-Floyd Valley.
“I felt really good, I was ready to race,” Young said. “I didn’t get out as good as I wanted to but after a few turns I kind of broke out from the pack a little bit and got myself up there.”
The ninth-place finish for Bock produced the first state medal for the senior in her fourth trip to state and came after a career worst 72nd place finish a year ago.
“I really wanted to come back here and prove myself that I could be in the top 10 and that last year wasn’t my best,” Bock said. “It feels amazing.”
Bock finished in 19:30.7, Quillin was 19th overall in 19:49.3 and O’Neill was 33rd overall in 10:10.19.
Junior Mara Duster placed 43rd overall in 20:30.62.
“These girls have worked so hard, for them to come to do what they did today it was amazing to watch,” Williams said. “For Emma Bock to go out her senior season and have the best race here that she has had that’s an awesome thing to see. Meg O’Neill really stepped it up for us today and of course Kayla, wow. For her to get fifth from where she was last year, she was sitting in class at this point last year.”
Class 3A State Cross Country Meet
At Lakeside Golf Course
Team scores – 1. Solon 77; 2. Ballard 103; 3. Dallas Center-Grimes 127; 4. Western Dubuque 165; 5. Mount Vernon/Lisbon 199; 6. Carlisle 205; 7. Harlan 212; 8. MOC-Floyd Valley 221; 9. North Polk 222; 10. Spencer 232; 11. Glenwood 239; 12. Center Point-Urbana 242; 13. Gilbert 249; 14. Dubuque Wahlert 265; 15. Marion 267
Individual medalists – 1. Paityn Noe (BAL) 18:12.74; 2. Geneva Timmerman (ADM) 19:06.41; 3. Ainsley Erzen (CAR) 19:13.86; 4. Emily Haverdink (MFV) 19:16.78; 5. Kayla Young (SOL) 19:19.68; 6. Raegan Snieder (Pella) 19:27.26; 7. Kaia Bieker (HAR) 19:29.18; 8. Kora Katcher (CPU) 19:29.64; 9. Emma Bock (SOL) 19:30.7; 10. Lilly Boge (WD) 19:30.95; 11. Ava Vance (BAL) 19:32.16; 12. Peyton Morey (SPE) 19:34.32; 13. Moriah Knapp (Algona) 19:35.52; 14. Alyssa Klein (WD) 19:36.07; 15. Ellie Meyer (DW) 19:36.76
Solon (77) – 4. Kayla Young 19:19.68; 7. Emma Bock 19:30.70; 15. Anna Quillin 19:49.3; 22. Meghan O’Neill 20:10.19; 29. Mara Duster 20:30.62; 51. Grace Federspiel 21:00.87; 54. Kaia Holtkamp 21:03.97
Clear Creek Amana – 20. Haidyn Barker 19:49.9; 54. Kalin Rotzoll 20:46.61; 86. Kira Barker 21:08.32
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