From Coach Rennie:
That is a wrap on the 2024 IMS Cross Country season, and that is a wrap on four team titles across all classifications! On Tuesday at Tolt Middle School, our runners showed up and left no doubt of their domination to close out the season, sweeping the team awards.
Three individual champions and multiple Top 10 finishers in each race proved that the work we have put in over the past two months paid off. Looking over the results, there were many Gator runners who improved their times on the Tolt course even since the last race a week earlier. Full results are below. Here are some highlights from the races.
League Finals Race Report (10-15-24)
The 6th Girls won the League Championship by a 19-point margin over the Twin Falls team, 25-44. Beau Berry secured an Individual Championship with the fastest time by any girl (10:44) on the day. Her teammate, Savannah Brondstetter was fractions of a second behind to shore up the 1-2 Gator finish. Quincy Larsen cruised to a 4th place finish, with Kate Cudney (8th) and Nella Vetrovsky (10th) not far behind. Shoutout to Grace Li (17th) and Piper Bradley (18th) for Top 20 finishes of their own!
The 6th Boys left nothing in doubt, scoring the fewest points of any team on the day, and beating Chief Kanim 20-66. Gavin Moloney dug deep and came home as League Champion in a time of 11:24. Carson Lee was one second behind in 2nd overall. Daniel Del Alamo-Alhama grabbed 4th place, with Kingston Jaffe (6th) and Lucas Moch (7th) rounding out the IMS scoring runners. Beyond that, four other Gators finished in the Top 20: Rohan Velamoor (9th), Finn Jungemann (10th), Peter Smith (11th) and Grant Matukaitis (20th). Wow!
The 7th/8th Girls had the closest race of the day (33-45) but were able to nail down a team title over Tolt with a total team effort. They had more finishers (13) in the Top 20 than any other IMS squad! Rizah Despres led the way for the team, finishing 2nd overall in 11:13. Nora Cudney was next with a strong 5th place finish. Lila Goodall (7th), Elsa Lee (9th) and Ava Arnsdorf (10th) scored solid points for the team. After that, an amazing eight other IMS runners finished in the Top 20: Sydney Munson (11th), Lana Kwon (12th), Chloe Cordero (15th), Maija McCune (16th), Caydence Powell (17th), Orla Farrell (18th), Chloe Chen (19th) and Tess Ahrenholz (20th). This was the definition of a full team win!
The 7th/8th Boys knew they were going to have a challenge, going up against a good team from Chief Kanim, but outstanding efforts by the Gators put the final result out of doubt (29-68). Jake Powell led the way for the team with his individual title in a time of 10:07 (fastest of the day). Ian Moch was a few steps behind in 2ndplace. Brendan Sullivan (7th), Cade O’Brien (9th) and Lucas Vetrovsky (10th) wrapped up the scoring slots for the team. Other Gator Top 20 finishers were: Dylan James (13th), Linden Baldwin (15th), Tom Cundall (16th), Temuujen Batbaatar (19th) and Liem McMullan (20th).
I know I speak for all the coaches when I say that we are unbelievably proud of how hard our runners have worked this year. They put in the miles, they sacrificed their time and effort, and they showed up and raced hard every Tuesday. Every single runner should be proud of the part they played in the team titles we won. We all push each other and we all win together! Way to go Gator XC!