With their 2022 cross country opener just a couple days away, Solon hits the turf ranked at/or close to the top in the state coaches’ polls. The Lady Spartans, after winning the Class 3A state title last fall and placing fifth in 2020, begin 2022 atop the Iowa Association of Track Coaches rankings. Solon’s boys, fifth a year ago in 3A and runners-up in 2020, are picked sixth as the season gets underway. Individual rankings are not yet in the mix.
Again, as in recent seasons, Solon faces a solid field of other ranked 3A and 2A schools on their schedule from meet to meet, and occasional 4A and 1A powers each step along the way.
In a cross country meet, each varsity team sends seven runners to the starting line of a five kilometer (3.2 mile) course. Contrary to most other team sports the low score determines the winner and subsequent team places. The combined finish total of a team’s top five runners becomes that school’s score. A tie can be broken with the teams’ sixth place. If a school cannot send at least five to the starting line it will not place as a team in the meet’s standings. In most meets, the remainder of the team is usually entered in junior varsity competition. Again however, the top seven finishers determine JV team places and scores.
2021 Girls’ Runners-up in early season meet
Solon’s girls want to improve on a close runner-up finish at Anamosa last year. Mid-Prairie, then ranked atop Class 2A, had the first and second runners. Its next three still were in the top eight for a meet low 22 points and the title. Solon, fourth in Class 3A voting early last year, notched 33 points with the third, fourth, seventh, ninth and 11th individual places in the Anamosa field of seven full teams. On the girls’ starting line this weekend, Solon should be led by three of those top ten 2021 finishers.
One of them is senior Kayla Young, just named as one of the Des Moines Register’s ‘Iowa’s top 25 girls cross country runners to know ahead of the 2022 season’. The Register’s Joe Randleman’s take on the 2022 season? “In addition to the four returning state champions, two runners placed second, two took third, three came in fourth and four finished fifth. Kayla Young was the lead runner for 2021 3A State champion Solon. (She) finished fifth individually in 3A with a time of 19:19.68. Her big junior season was a reason Solon won last year’s state title. She did not run at state when Solon took fifth in 2020.”
Firepower back for boys, too
Solon’s boys should have a pair of 2021 varsity place winners and high-finishing JV runners in their lineup, up, down and around on Anamosa’s winding, hilly course. The Spartans took second last year behind Cedar Rapids Kennedy’s 47 points and edging Washington 76-78 for the runner-up spot in their 11 team field.
Upcoming meets
Saturday, August 27 AT Anamosa Middle School 9:00 a.m.
Thursday, Sept. 1 AT Iowa City Kickers Soccer Fields 4:00 p.m.