(Guthrie Center) Colin Shawgo, head coach for the defending state champion ACGC boys cross country team, feels his group is even better this season than they were a year ago.
The Chargers host a Class 1A state qualifying meet on Thursday. Coach Shawgo is very optimistic about what his group can accomplish both this week and next. “This team is really, really good. I think we are ahead of where we were last year. After graduating a couple of guys that’s really exciting to see the growth that we’ve had. Our body of works speaks for itself. We’ve went out and won five meets this year. The only times we’ve lost have been against ranked, larger schools. Whenever we’ve raced Class 1A teams we’ve really dominated against them.”
Coach Shawgo take a peek ahead to competition at state, listing ACGC as the favorite, followed by challengers Iowa City Regina and Woodbine. “I’m really excited to see what this team can do. Like I said, I think this team is better than the state champion team from last year. I’m excited for them to go up there and prove their worth to everybody. With our experience and how well we have come on in the last couple of weeks I think we have a very good shot at repeating.”
As far as the state qualifying meet, IKM-Manning is the only other ranked boys team at that site. Justin Reinhart is ranked #1 and Shawgo considers him the favorite to win it. Other highly ranked runners include Nodaway Valley’s Doug Berg, Boyer Valley’s Patrick Heffernan, and IKM-Manning’s Caden Keller. “He’s raced Patrick Heffernan and Caden Keller before and has lost to both of them, but the last couple weeks he’s really been turning it on and I think he is the favorite on Thursday.”
The ranked girls teams in the field include #2 Earlham, #10 ACGC, and #17 IKM-Manning. Coach Shawgo says his girls team is ahead of where they were last year and comes in with confidence, but they know IKM-Manning and Boyer Valley will be pushing them for the #2 spot behind Earlham. “IKM-Manning has a good girls team. We’ve raced them before and we’ve beaten them before, but they are a team we are going to have to watch out for. They pack up really well and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them make a move at us. The Boyer Valley girls have a couple of really good weeks. They are unranked, but I think that’s another team we’ll have to watch out for. It will be an exciting race on the girls side. I do think there are four teams that have a legitimate chance of qualifying for state.”
Earlham’s Olivia Spurling and Mackenzie Harger will be among the front runners individually along with ACGC’s Ava Campbell. It’s a challenging course. Coach Shawgo calls it a huge luxury to be able to run at home. “When we developed our course we built it specifically to be unique and extremely challenging. The first mile is pretty quick so it sets you up for a good race and then right smack dab in the middle is about a 600 meter hill. That hill really tests you. It makes you work and prove you are mentally tough and physically tough, which is kind of the point of cross country. From there you have another couple little hills and turns and then the finish is on the track which lends itself to some pretty fun finishes, especially with the grandstand right there cheering people on.”
19 schools will be represented on Thursday at ACGC including local squads AHSTW, Audubon, CAM, Exira-EHK, and Nodaway Valley. The meet starts at 4:00 p.m. The top two teams and top ten individuals advance to Fort Dodge.
ACGC coach Colin Shawgo:
