Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

FORT DODGE – The expectations keep rising for the Clear Creek Amana cross country team and the Clippers keep on meeting them.

Clear Creek Amana capped the most successful season in program history with its first ever top-10 state finish, placing 10th at the Class 3A state meet at Lakeside Golf Course in Fort Dodge.

The Clippers had three runners in the top 36 and finished with 242 points on its way to the best state performance in program history.

Clear Creek Amana finished 11 points in front of Cedar Rapids Xavier to secure its first top-10 state finish.

“2017 will go down as the most successful season in CCA history,” Clear Creek Amana coach Ben Robison said. “We accomplished a lot including the best finish at the state championships in program history.”

Sophomore Nick O’Connor led Clear Creek Amana, placing 21st in a career-best time of 16:50.5.

O’Connor took more than 35 seconds off his state meet time from last season when he finished 46th in 17:25.9.

“It helped a lot with knowing the course and knowing where to kick,” O’Connor said. “It’s a huge confidence boost for me going into next year.”  

O’Connor entered the season with the goal of breaking the 17-minute mark. He hadn’t done that until Saturday.

“This was my first meet breaking 17 minutes so I am really happy with that,” O’Connor said. “That’s been a goal for since last year so I was really happy with that.”

Making back-to-back state meet appearances for the first time in program history the Clippers moved up four spots after finishing 14th last season.

O’Connor paced a trio of Clippers that finished in the top 36 on Saturday.

Freshman Brandon Barker was 32nd in 17:00.6 in his state meet debut while sophomore Jack Sexton was 36th in 17:01.5.

“This year the goal was to get top 10 and kind of go from there,” O’Connor said. “Hopefully we can build on this and keep improving as a team.”

Without no seniors in the lineup on Saturday the expectations will be at an all-time high next season.

“I’m happy our young guys got state meet experience,” Robison said. “We really focused on process goals instead of product goals and the body of work we had this season speaks for itself. I know, deep down, that the guys have big goals moving forward and I think they know exactly what to do and how to do it to get there. There is nothing I could ask for more as their coach.”
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State Cross Country Meet

At Lakeside Golf Course in Fort Dodge

Class 3A Boys

Team scores – 1. Gilbert 75; 2. Dallas Center-Grimes 113; 3. Decorah 115; 4. Mount Vernon-Lisbon 145; 5. Grinnell 146; 6. Marion 189; 7. Carlisle 210; 8. Center Point-Urbana 222; 9. Sergeant Bluff-Luton 236; 10. Clear Creek Amana 242; 11. Cedar Rapids Xavier 253; 12. Bondurant-Farrar 264; 13. Nevada 265; 14. ADM 282; 15. Clear Lake 290.

Individual medalists – 1. Myles Bach (Center Point-Urbana) 15:49.1; 2. Jeremy Fopma (Marion) 15:54.8; 3. Andrew Kephart (Decorah) 16:04.5; 4. Thomas Clower (Grinnell) 16:11.7; 5. Miles Scott (Sergeant Bluff-Luton) 16:14.1; 6. Rees Tyler (Gilbert) 16:15.5; 7. Gus Hayes (Decorah) 16:19.8; 8. Cody Mertens (Mount Pleasant) 16:26; 9. Malachi Hornbuckle (Nevada) 16:28.3; 10. Nathan Patel (Gilbert) 16:29.6; 11. Nate Mueller (ADM) 16:30.5; 12. Trent O’Halloran (Grinnell) 16:33.3; 13. Patrick Gorkow (Benton Community) 16:34.9; 14. Harrison VanderLinden (Marion) 16:35.4; 15. Payton Bahl (Mount Vernon-Lisbon) 16:35.6.

Clear Creek Amana – 21. Nick O’Connor 16:50.5; 32. Brandon Barker 17:00.6; 36. Jack Sexton 17:01.5; 71. Cole Liebe 17:44.5; 82. Caleb Alcorn 18:01; 98. Kaden McAreavy 18:42.3; 104. Brandon McCarty 19:58.3.