Published: October 23, 2009 07:05 am      

Cross country qualify put on hold for most teams

16 of 20 meets are postponed until Monday

Herald Staff Report

Thursday’s soggy weather across Iowa led to postponement of all but four district/regional high school cross country meets. Clinton was the only area team that was able to compete.

Local coaches had varied opinions on how the delay of the meets until Monday afternoon would affect the runners, with the state meet scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 31, in Fort Dodge.

“I don’t think so,” Camanche coach Mark Metzger said when asked if the four-day delay would have an impact on the runners. “We run Monday and state is not until Saturday, so I don’t think it’s a disadvantage. At this point, they probably enjoy the shorter break. They want to get on with it.”

Prince of Peace coach Dave Lawrence wasn’t so sure everyone would be on equal footing, though.

“The teams that competed today have a real advantage going to state,” said Lawrence, whose teams were scheduled to run in the Class 1A meets at Wapello. Most teams try to be rested for the biggest, most important meets. They try to taper down toward district or state, whichever they’re focused on. Teams that run Monday do not have much time to prepare for state because workouts generally have to be pretty easy.

“It’s odd. The state used to put a little pressure on to run all the districts nine days before state. If they missed, they tried to make it up Friday or Saturday, but the state moved to Monday, which seems opposite of former policy.”

Metzger said he suspected that was because so many of the meets are run on golf courses, and with continued rain in the forecast, moving the meets back to Monday would allow the courses more times to dry to out.

Five district boys meets and five regional girls meets were scheduled. Meets went on at two Class 4A sites and one each in 2A and 3A.

“All the teams in 1A will be in the same boat, so that won’t be so bad,” Lawrence said.

Besides the 1A meets at Wapello, which included Bellevue, Bellevue Marquette and Preston, in addition to Prince of Peace, other meets moved to Monday included the 3A events at Anamosa that included Central DeWitt and Maquoketa, the 2A meet in Anamosa in which Northeast/East Central was scheduled to run and the 2A meets in Columbus Junction that included Camanche.

Metzger said it would be interesting to see how the four-day delay affected the runners.

“The difficult part with young kids is they were geared up to run today,” he said. “The more experienced ones are better able to deal with it and roll with the punches. The younger kids who haven’t been involved in that type of competition will struggle more.”

The Indians boys team could be a perfect example of that. Led by state-meet veteran and Big East Conference individual champion Codie Adams, Camanche is coming off a first-place finish at last Friday’s conference meet, which was run on a course with soft footing.

“Our last meet was very soggy and wet, and the kids competed well,” Metzger said. “That may be some indication that they might be better on a soggy course as opposed to a fast one. The positive thing is they responded to less-than-perfect conditions in a big way. Hopefully, we get the same kind of effort Monday.”