Young ’Cats corral medals at Newton

NEWTON -- A pair of underclassmen collected top-10 medals as the Marshalltown cross country teams competed at the Steve McDermott Cardinal Invite on Tuesday at Maytag Park.

MHS sophomore Costin Piscitelli took third place in the boys race and freshman Lillian Heil was seventh on the girls' side to lead their respective squads.

Piscitelli clocked in with a finishing time of 17 minutes, 46 seconds -- 1:45 faster than a season ago -- and earned bronze. Cedar Rapids Xavier's Andrew Allen was the winner in 17:21 and Lynnville-Sully's Colton Alberts was second in 17:39.

The Bobcats totaled 225 points to place seventh out of 14 scoring teams, with Waukee and Johnson finishing ahead of Marshalltown at 176. South Tama took 12th with 284 points, and BCLUW was the only team in attendance that didn't field a full squad.

Cedar Rapids Xavier won the meet with just 31 team points, Benton Community was second (66) and Grinnell was third (126).

Marshalltown's other scoring runners included Thomas Stanley, who took 38th in 19:54. Connor Faas finished 44th in 20:06, followed by Elliot Kodis in 55th (20:35) and Cooper McLeod in 94th (25:26).

South Tama's Max Schirmer was 24th in 19:20 to lead the Trojans, while Henri Martinez-Alvarado was 50th (20:20) and Kyler Johnson-Whitefish took 62nd (20:44). Riley Stubbs and Nolan Arp finished 77-78 to round out STC's scoring.

Tommy Hinderhofer placed 36th for BCLUW, crossing the finish line in 19:48. Olin Hupfeld was 59th in 20:37, followed by Harrison Schiebel in 85th (22:50) and Manny Hinderhofer in 93rd (25:23).

On the girls' side, Heil timed in at 21:11.1 to finish behind only six runners, beating Van Meter eighth-grader Genevieve Kelly (21.11.7) to the line in a foot race. Van Meter's Ivory Stoffa, also an eighth-grader, won the meet in 20:38.

Newton claimed the team title with 72 points, while Van Meter won the tiebreaker over Xavier for second place after both teams scored 88.

Marshalltown totaled 140 for sixth out of 11 scoring teams, just back of Lynnville-Sully (137) and barely in front of Benton (145). South Tama took 11th with 330 points, while sent one runner for the event.

For the Bobcats, underclassmen Grace Whitmore and Naysa Rottink finished consecutively, placing 21-22 in respective times of 22:35 and 22:40.

Mallory Meyeraan (42nd, 24:21) and Lily Johnson (50th, 25:08) rounded out Marshalltown's scoring performances.

BCLUW's Chloe Switzer finished in 39th place in 23:52 as the team's only runner. South Tama was paced by eighth-grader Adalyn Graff, who was 58th in 26:17. Also scoring for the Trojans were Piper Sawyer (69th, 28:16), Livia Smith (71st, 28:53), Katelynne Brant (72nd, 29:03) and Anna Ahrens (73rd, 29:07).