(Greenfield) Nodaway Valley has to replace state champion Josh Baudler and four time state participant Tyler Breheny among others, but the Wolverines should once again be one of Class 1A’s most formidable boys cross country programs.
Three very strong runners return for coach Darrell Burmeister’s team. “Toby Bower and Ben Breheny are our seniors and we have sophomore Doug Berg. Those three were all scoring runners for us last year on our state runner-up teams. Their workouts have been excellent. Every time I give them a time they definitely hit it.”
Burmeister says the trio is training at a 16:40 pace and he believes all three can be all-staters. The overall success of the team will likely hinge on finding two more quality runners to round out the scoring. “We are looking for a 4th and 5th. We have Malachi Broers (Sophia’s brother) coming in as a freshman, picked up a new kid Gavin Shoemaker that’s been running a lot this summer. We have to keep all of our guys out so hopefully Mason Menefee and Lucas Van Otterloo stick with it. We definitely have a deck team for sure if we develop our 4th and 5th runners.”
Over the last five seasons the Nodaway Valley boys have three state championships and one runner-up. “We have to try and convince the young people they can become distance runners if they’ve never tried it before. That’s a constant battle. We take a lot of pride in what we’ve done in the past. We’d like to sustain that. We said we wanted to move the cross country capitol to southwest Iowa because it’s always been so east and central dominated. I think we’ve made some progress in that definitely.”
The team opens up the season ranked 4th behind Madrid, Earlham, and Calamus-Wheatland.
