Championship Webpage
DECORAH, IOWA . . . The Wartburg College women and Loras College men claimed team titles, while Luther College senior Emma Spoon and Coe College senior Kyle Heineman won individual crowns Saturday at the 2011 Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) Cross Country Championships at Luther College.
In the women’s race, Wartburg placed four in the top-6 and had all seven scoring runners in the top-17 to outdistance runner-up and defending champion Luther, 28-45, and tie the Norse with their league-record 12th title. Loras finished third (78 points), just ahead of Cornell (101), which tied a program-best with a fourth-place finish.
For the second year in a row, the men’s team race was a close affair between Loras and Luther. Last year in Dubuque, it was the Norse scoring a league meet record-high 57 points and edging the Duhawks by four points. This year, deep in the Oneota Valley, Loras returned the favor. Both Luther and Loras placed five scoring runners inside the top-18, but two of Loras’ runners landed in the top five, helping the Duhawks to a 53-57 victory and their first title since 1997. The Duhawk win also snapped a streak of five consecutive titles for the Norse. Loras’ team total equals that of the 1963 Dubuque Spartans for the second-highest team total for a league champion and the 3-point margin-of-victory is the slimmest since 2006 when Luther edged Wartburg, 34-36. Wartburg, with three runners in the top-15, took third with 79 points.
Spoon, the 2010 champion, successfully defended her title, covering the 6-kilometer course in 22 minutes, 34.2 seconds. She finished just ahead of a trio of Wartburg runners – Emily Eimers (22:36.8), Alana Enabnit (22:45.2), and Laura Sigmund (22:53.2). Spoon, Eimers, and Sigmund all earned all-conference honors for the second time, as did Wartburg’s Sammi Bruett (6th, 23:00.9), and Luther’s Christina Storlie (10th, 23:18.0). Luther senior Melissa Erickson, who finished fifth (22:57.3), captured her third all-league honor.
Heineman, the first men’s individual champion from Coe, completed the 8,000-meter race in 25 minutes, 14.3 seconds to outdistance the field by 8.4 seconds. Loras’ Dan McDermott (25:22.7) took second followed by Cornell’s Chase Nowak (25:29.7), Luther’s Marty Mitchell (25:35.5) and teammate Jerry Olp (25:43.0). Thirteen individuals entered this year’s Championship with prior all-league honors to their name. Of those, ten – Heineman, McDermott, Nowak, Olp, Cornell’s Ben Jacobs (6th, 25:45.3), Simpson’s Ryan Edwardson (8th, 25:47.9), Wartburg’s Grant Moser (9th, 25:49.4), Loras’ Austin Steil (13th, 25:57.2) and Luther’s Shane Steele (12th, 25:54.0) and Evan Neubauer (15th, 26:08.4) – captured honors again this year. Steele’s accomplishment is of particular note as he joins a small list of individuals to have earned all-Iowa Conference honors in cross country four times.
Coaches of the Year: Wartburg head coach Steve Johnson was named Iowa Conference Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year for the 14th time after guiding the Knights to their 12th title. Loras head coach Bob Schultz was named Iowa Conference Men’s Cross Country Coach of the Year for the first time after guiding the Duhawks to their first title in 14 years.
The top-15 runners at the Iowa Conference Championships receive All-Conference recognition.
~~~ www.iowaconference.com ~~~
