Sonderman wins Storm Lake Invitational by over one minute
HCHS Senior Lindsey Sonderman and the girls cross country team continues to perform strong, with another set of first place finishes at the Storm Lake Invitational Tuesday. Sonderman’s time of 18:34.44 was almost 90 seconds ahead of Addison Liston of Unity Christian with 19:56.44.
“She’s a very talented runner, very gifted obviously,” said Cyclone Head Coach Zach Klaassen said of Sonderman. “You don’t run like that unless you’re gifted. She puts the extra time in. She’s doing two workouts a day a lot of the time. She’s dedicated to her craft and mentally she’s as tough as I’ve seen.”
The girls took a first place finish as a team with 52 points, eight ahead of MOC-Floyd Valley who came in second place with 60. Outside of Sonderman, multiple girls finished in the top 25 including, Ashlyn Rau in 5th with 20:16.58, Brylee Schechinger in 13th with 21:26.05, Aspen Bieker in 16th with 21:51.49, Allie Anderson in 17th with 21:55.83, and Ava Freund in 25th with 23:03.54.
“I think she ran a pretty gutsy race,” Klaassen said of Freund. “Kind of like Jeffrey, she got out there and attacked that first mile. She’s coming along and she’s running really well.”
The boys took an overall finish of ninth place with 243 points. MOC-Floyd Valley came in first place with 45 points. One Cyclone in Jeffrey Gross managed to sneak his way into the top 25 taking 22nd place overall with 18:48.16 and continues to bring down his times.
“I think he’s definitely attacking that first mile more than he has in the past,” Klaassen said of Gross. “That’s put him in position and if you don’t get in position early, it’s hard to get up in that top 20. He goes sub-19 and that was a pretty good race for him.”
The Cyclones next event will be Tuesday at the Quail Run Golf Course at 5 p.m., where they will be one of 16 schools competing.
“That’s one of the bigger meets, because they run just one girls race and one boys race,” Klaassen said. “If you’re not in position early, it gets pretty crowded. It’s pretty hilly and some of it is tough because you have side hills and you have one leg and one foot higher than the other, and it’s kind of hard on the body. We just want to make sure we get in position early.”