Anyone who has watched the Pleasant Valley boys’ cross country team race knows that they are something special. Last Thursday night, they proved they are just that. At a race that determines state qualifying teams, the Spartans seemed to go above and beyond by beating the rest of the field by over 20 points and qualifying for the state meet for the 15th consecutive year, the longest streak in the state of Iowa currently.

PV was able to place all five of their scoring runners in the top 15, qualifying all of them individually for the state meet. Konnor Sommer and Anthony Pena came in first and second with Gavin Blank, Parker Huhn, and Ian Kallenberger not far behind them. Belby was pleased with the Spartans performance on Thursday stating, “Gavin Smith was particularly impressive with his close positioning with two outstanding runners: Konnor Sommer and Anthony Pena. Parker Huhn handled the adversity of falling in the race with his best performance ever at Crow Creek Park. Ian Kaffenberger has been a consistent top 5 finisher for us all year long. I have also been impressed with the huge growth we have seen from Andrew Witters and Kent Nichols.”

The Spartans are going into the state meet ranked 3rd. But the team doesn’t want to stop there. With the memory of last year’s state meet fresh in their mind, the runners are definitely on the hunt for a state championship. Belby stated, “I believe they all want to bring home the state title.  We missed winning state by three tenths of a second last year so they are motivated. It won’t be easy, but it is realistic. Therefore it is an appropriate goal.”

On the other side of things, the PV girls’ cross country team narrowly qualified for state by placing third in the districts meet with a total of 68 points. Coming off of a MAC Conference win last week boosted the team on their road back to state, more mentally than physically. This was their first conference victory since breaking a streak of over 10 consecutive titles back in 2015. Senior Laura Brown stated, “Winning MAC made us excited to compete against teams that aren’t in our conference and gave us confidence going into the rest of the postseason.”

The Spartans had three girls place in the top 15 runners, which qualifies them individually for state: Maddy Minard, Mallory Lafever, and Abby Riley. Minard, the team’s top runner for the meet, said, “Personally, I knew that I had to go out and run as hard as I could for the team to help us get to state.” At state she wishes to go out and run a personal record and make all-state.

The eighth-ranked Lady Spartans believe that this past meet does not reflect the potential that the team has. Minard said, “The meet didn’t match up at all to what we are looking to do next week at state, we want to go out and race a lot stronger and place in the top 3.” Brown also reiterates Minard’s goal stating, “We would like to make it on the deck.” Which would indicate placing in the top three in the state.

Both Pleasant Valley cross country teams will be competing for a state title on Saturday, October 28th in Fort Dodge.