T-R PHOTO BY ANDREW ABADIE — Marshalltown High School sophomore Phoebe Hermanson nears the finish line during Thursday’s Class 4A state-qualifying meet at Marshalltown Community College.

For the second week in a row, Marshalltown sophomore Phoebe Hermanson ran a lifetime best on Thursday at the state qualifying meet at the Marshalltown Community College course.

This time, however, Hermanson punched her ticket to compete in the state meet.

Hermanson finished in seventh place running a time of 19 minutes, 10 seconds.

“I’m pretty happy with how I ran,” Hermanson. “Basically my goal was to just qualify and preferably [finish] in the top-10 so I am very happy with seventh.”

For Hermanson, it is the second year in a row that she has qualified for the state meet.

“I’ve definitely put in some miles over the course of the season and summer so the taper and everything is just kind of working out on an upper curve for me which is everything I can ask for,” she said.

The race featured four Class 4A top-10 ranked teams: No. 1 Johnston, No. 7 Cedar Rapids Prairie, No. 13 Ottumwa and No. 15 Iowa City Liberty.

“I thought we had a pretty tough district so [was] not completely guaranteed that she was going to make it to state,” Marshalltown head coach Stacy O’Hare said. “She had to definitely work for it. We had a lot of great runners here today with great competition. I thought she ran a very smart race. She didn’t go out and be in the lead with the top girl but she got out really well like she always does and kind of maintained that position the entire way. I thought she did a great job and ran smart. Obviously, her hard work paid off.”

Hermanson’s strategy was to keep the lead runners in her sights, and she managed to stick with Alli Bookin-Nosbisch from Ottumwa who passed Hermanson in the final stretch of the race.

“[My] game plan [was to] get out strong like last [week] and try and keep the leaders in sight,” Hermanson said. “I knew [Ashlyn Keeney of Iowa City Liberty] was going to be way far out there but I kept Alli insight. We ran near each other basically the whole race but she got me at the end. But have a strong finish and not let too many people pass me at the end.”

Winning the race was Keeney, who finished with a time of 17:52. Winning the team title was Johnston with Indianola and Cedar Rapids Prairie finishing in second and third to advance to the state meet.

Marshalltown finished in eighth place, beating Fort Dodge and Newton.

Makenna Ainsworth finished in 45th place with a time of 22:08 and Rachel Smith ran 22:15 to finish in 48th place for the Bobcats. Rounding out the top-five was Odaly Flores and Kaci Uhde who both ran 22:20. Hannah Seltman ran 22:46 and Jade Tejada ran 22:51 to finish in 55th and 56th place, respectively.

“The girls I thought ran really well,” O’Hare said. “They continued to cut time and kept improving throughout the season from where we were at the beginning of the season to where we are at now. The girls ran personal bests. They obviously cut time and continued to improve. We have some seniors that we are definitely going to miss next year but yet we have a lot of young kids that also going to be returning.”

The state meet will be held at Lakeside Municipal Golf Course in Fort Dodge on Nov. 2.