Young Bombers Finish 10th At Home Invite

Ballard Scores 255 Team Points

September 15, 2020

The men's cross country team battled the injury bug and placed 10th at the Mike Carr Invitational Meet on Monday night in Huxley. The team scored 255 points. Dallas Center-Grimes won the meet with a score of 45. Gage Long finished 31st for the Bombers with a time of 18:49.4. Austin Shoen (34th) ran in a time of 18:53.0 and senior Jack Chism finished 59th with a time of 20:08.7. Humboldt's Quinton Orr won the race with a time of 15:42.3.

Comments From Head Coach Scott Barth:

"Our boys ran a decent race considering we were short handed in this our first meet. Gage Long and Austin Shoen ran good season starting times - both of them breaking the 19 minute barrier. Jack Chism gutted through some pain and finished 59th overall. Chase Brekke helped get Jack going by moving side by side with him when he was struggling and finished 61st. Seth Pencook, Ian Godbold, and freshman Kale Zimmerman rounded out our varsity which finished 10th in class A. As I said, we were without the services of Ben Ward and Trent Payne tonight. Both have injuries and were not able to compete for us tonight. We are hoping to have Trent back soon - potentially by next meet. Ben is a wait and see after his appointment tomorrow. He is most likely out for several weeks, but we hope he can hop back in by season's end. Wyatt Borg ran particularly well in JV and earned a varsity spot running a time of 20:24 in his first race of his career. He has a good upside and we hope that he continues to work hard and make a push for a varsity spot. Senior Alex Wiech, freshman Owen Greco, and junior Jacob Ross also entered the varsity conversation with good races also. They are three hard workers and will continue to improve."

"The boys are a better team than we saw tonight on the course. We had some good performances, but overall we need to work on the mental toughness and focus it takes to improve. Gage Long is a good role model to look at in these regards. He is mentally tough and has laser focus. I will be promoting that in the days to come. This toughness and focus starts in workouts and we will push hard to make improvements. This is, most likely, the toughest meet we will see until the regional meet, so I am not going to read too much into the 10th place finish. I see it as a starting point and we know what we can do to improve. I still believe in these guys, but we definitely need adjustments to workouts and a few breaks from our trend of bad luck here and there.

The Bombers are back in action on Saturday, September 19 when they compete at the Heartland Classic at Central College. The meet will feature the varsity only and start at 10:35 AM. Spectators are not allowed at the meet.

MIKE CARR INVITATIONAL TEAM SCORES

1. Dallas Center-Grimes, 45

2. North Polk, 60

3. Carlisle, 80

4. ADM, 82

5. Humboldt, 98

6. Gilbert, 166

7. Webster City, 192

8. Winterset, 205

9. Bondurant-Farrar, 228

10. Ballard, 255

11. Boone, 291