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PRESTO!

Marshalltown’s Preston Johnson makes historic run to state title

By Ross Thede 7 min read

FORT DODGE -- There was no ace in the hole.

With all their cards laid bare, Preston Johnson was holding a winner.

Marshalltown's senior sensation made history on Saturday by smashing the all-time record at the Iowa High School State Cross Country Championships, claiming the Class 4A title in a blistering time of 14 minutes, 40.2 seconds at Lakeside Municipal Golf Course.

It represented the eighth boys state championship in Bobcat history, and it marked off a goal that had formed three years earlier.

On Saturday, the time arrived, and Johnson rose up to meet it.

"It's a very special moment," he said. "It was just an accumulation of everything that I've been working for over the last four years."

Johnson placed 92nd at state as a freshman, 70th as an illness-stricken sophomore, and second last fall with the third-fastest time in state meet history.

On Saturday, Johnson said it was going to take another record to beat him, so that's what he set out to achieve.

When it came time to ante up, the deck was already stacked in Johnson's favor.

"Every night this week, perfect sleep, and all the workouts have been over-delivering," Johnson said. "My mind in these kind of weeks is hyperanalyzing everything, searching for one bad thing, and I couldn't find anything -- only green flags, so I knew that today was going to be special."

Johnson led essentially every step of the race, pushing the pack to his pace to prevent from getting out-kicked at the end. When the leaders hit the 1-mile mark, Johnson pushed the pedal down even farther.

"I knew I'd have to push it, I couldn't run a race where they were wondering if they could stick with me," Johnson said. "I knew I would have to run a race where they knew they couldn't stick with me going into that last mile.

"At the first mile we were on like a 4:55 pace, and I'm like 'alright, we've got to speed this up' and I started running 4:40s and I never slowed down."

Johnson hit the gas, and his pace depleted his counterparts' tanks. He started separating himself from his challengers and chased them off one by one.

By the time he rounded the final corner atop the homestretch, Johnson was virtually all alone. He didn't know where his rivals were, so he took a peek to satisfy his curiosity.

"I had never looked back, I never knew," he said. "Then I looked back with about 200 (meters) to go and that was when I was like 'alright, let's go get this state record.

"'Let's rep Marshalltown, let's go jersey pull.'"

He tugged at his uniform, flexing the "BOBCATS" across the front as he finished off the fastest 5K in state meet history.

Iowa City Liberty senior Keegan Decker, who had gotten the upper hand on Johnson in two regular-season meetings, was runner-up in 14:53.1. Johnston's Jack Crossland was third in 14:55.5, and Kuma Gutema of Sioux City North was fourth in 15:03.4.

Decker's time -- the third-fastest in state meet history -- would have won the 4A race last fall, but it wasn't fast enough to prevent Johnson from raking in the title.

Not even Quentin Nauman's 14:48.3, which won the 3A crown a year ago, was anywhere near Johnson's incredible achievement.

"It means everything," Johnson said of the record and the state title. "We knew that it was gonna have to be that to win it today. That's how we've expected it to go down. We knew that I'd have to push, and we knew it would have to be fast for me to make some separation.

"It would be to my benefit if it wasn't a kick to the finish. Even though I have been feeling good with my kick, I'd rather not leave it to that at this time in my season."

No need to kick at the finish when you run a 4:43.31 mile pace.

"It's pretty big, obviously it was a historic race, and it's another Marshalltown state champion," said MHS head coach Chad Pietig. "That's pretty big, and it shows everybody else that it can be done here in Marshalltown."

Johnson became the Bobcats' first state cross country champion since Stephen Dak won back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006. Dak matched 1999 state champ Grant Shadden's school-record time of 15:05 to win in 2006, but their mark was no match for Johnson's determination.

"His goal his freshman year was to get here, and he came with those two upperclassmen (John Moellers and James Johnson) and had a good experience," Pietig recalled. "But he said leaving that day 'I'm going to be a state champion.' This was three years in the works.

"A lot of times kids say that, but they don't have the discipline to do what it takes to get there. It's just really rare to put your training and your craft ahead of everything else, and that's what he did."

Johnson also had the pleasure of serving as that senior leader for an underclassman who qualified. Bobcat sophomore Costin Piscitelli took to the course at Fort Dodge for the first time on Saturday and, while dealing with an acute illness, finished 117th overall in 17:32.3.

"This was his goal and we tapered to get here, we trained to get here knowing that getting through our district was going to be the hard part," Pietig said. "Today we were just hoping we could duplicate last week -- we weren't expecting a major time drop -- but last week would have put him in the top 50 and that would have been pretty good for your first time here.

"You feel bad for him that he got sick, but luckily we have a little bit of historical background with kids getting sick as sophomores and their careers turning out OK."

Piscitelli pushed himself off the starting line to an opening mile time of 5:04.8, but his fastest starting split wasn't sustainable on this day. He had a lot higher hopes than 117th out of 130 runners, but Piscitelli vows to be back for recompense next fall.

"Next year is going to be a lot different than this year," he said. "Our goal this year was to get here. I got here. Now next year we're just gonna really go for that podium."

Whitmore makes debut

Fellow Marshalltown sophomore Grace Whitmore ended a six-year drought for the girls' program by pushing through to state for the first time, finishing in 106th place with a time of 20:51.7.

At the state-qualifying meet the previous week in Marshalltown, Whitmore placed 19th in an almost identical time of 20:51.8.

"Everyone is pretty fast and everyone is here to do their best, so it was a very fast race," said Whitmore. "They're the best in the state."

Whitmore emerged from her state debut with pride for her accomplishment and motivation for the future.

"I'm really happy because today is like the start of the years to come," she said, "and I'll have more teammates next year to run with, too."

Whitmore was Marshalltown's first girl to qualify for state since Phoebe Hermanson made it to Fort Dodge in 2018 and 2019, but a young Bobcat contingent has Whitmore's achievement to model for next season.

"I was just super, super proud of Grace as always," said MHS head coach Kim Hurley. "She's just always a leader and she just gets better and better. She went out hard, like we've been practicing, and her first mile was probably as fast as she's ever run."

This season marked the first time since 2010 that the Bobcats had both girls and boys qualifiers for the state meet, and two of them -- Whitmore and Piscitelli -- are sophomores.

"I'm just so excited to get the program going again and it's exciting to see what could happen when we put it all together," Hurley said. "We brought everybody up here today so we could get their eyes on the prize. It's exciting to have so many of them coming back (next season)."

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