Three schools from the KCII listening area will have their colors on the course next week at the Class 1A Iowa High School State Cross Country Championships after four local runners punched their tickets to Fort Dodge at the Iowa City qualifier Thursday.

In the girls race, Hillcrest Academy’s Marie Yoder put on a show. The freshman phenom ran away with the title by more than 30 seconds with a time of 20:30 to clinch. Yoder spoke with KCII Sports after the meet about the win. Yoder said, “Maybe a mile and a half or two miles in, I knew I had a good lead and I just wanted to keep building on that and get a better time. It’s really amazing, because I didn’t know coming into the season, how I was going to do. It’s really neat to be representing Hillcrest. It means a lot because I put so much work in getting to this point and now the results are paying off. I want to thank my teammates for always pushing me in practice.”

Other Raven runners included Rya Scott 31st, Delaney Shaw 36th and Brynna O’Rourke 54th.

The Columbus Wildcats had a multi-qualifier day. For the girls, Iris Garza got through in third at 21:12. For the Wildcat boys Damian Vergara will be at state after taking eighth in 18:03. The Wildcat girls placed fifth as a team with 99 points. Other finishers included Ariana Vergara 19th, Isabel Rendon 30th, Naveiah Garza 37th, Kimberly Gonzalez 39th, and Amelia Fulton 50th. The Wildcat boys were sixth with 151 points. Other finishers after Vergara included Cade Storm 22nd, Ian Estudillo 23rd, Ellis Hills-Carrier 50th, Juan Alcala 60th, Drake Marin 61st, and Ryan Villa 66th.

The Winfield-Mt. Union boys will have Kohlby Newsom at state. He finished third overall in 17:30 to secure his spot. As a team, the Wolves were fifth with 147 points. Other WMU runners included Gabriel Hemsworth 18th, Bowen Thomson 33rd, Ty Scorpil 43rd, and Jacob Nelson 63rd.

Other boys teams that posted scores included Hillcrest Academy 11th with 263 points. Finishers for the Ravens included Micah Gerber 26th, Jesse Blossom 38th, Isaac Beachy 64th, Braden Hartstock 80th, Jeremiah Danker 86th and Micah Kacmarynski 88th. The Highland boys were 13th with 332 points. Brock Thoman was 53rd, Jacob Schneider 79th, Jackson Schneider 81st, Brayden Zywiec 83rd, Chase Hickenbottom 84th, and Isaac Giesmann 85th.

Top boys finishers from other area teams included Sigourney’s Troy Klett 28th, Brock Nebergall of Lone Tree 31st, and WACO’s Keiran Luitjens 49th. Top girls finishers from other area teams included Highland’s Siena Stanerson 11th, Addison Yates from Sigourney 20th, Vivian Zaruba of Lone Tree 29th, Afton Wilkerson of Winfield-Mt. Union 38th and Sarah Craun from WACO 51st.

All qualifiers will travel to the Lakeside Municipal Golf Course in Fort Dodge Saturday, October 28th for the Class 1A State Championship meet. You can hear full interviews with each of the 1A State Qualifying runners during this week’s KCII PM Sports Page programs on Wednesday and Thursday. You can hear live updates from state at the top of every hour on AM and FM KCII and find updated live results on our website at KCIIradio.com.