By Niya Miller
This year, both the Boys and Girls Cross Country teams have been working hard.
Coaches Eric Olson and Katie Moulton have been helping their runners prepare for the State Cross Country Meet held in Fort Dodge on Friday, November 1st. Qualifiers were freshman Ashlyn Appleby for the Girl’s team and the Boy’s Varsity Team. All qualifiers are shown on the right.
Let’s start off by meeting the coach. The boy’s teams are coached by Eric Olson, who is also a teacher here at Central Dewitt. He teaches upper-level math classes during the day, and after school is the head coach of the team. He’s been head coach for 15 years but has participated in the sport in some way for 32 years. Olson talks about how he ended up in this position, saying “I don’t know if I really chose it so much as it chose me. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing, and when I first came here I wanted to work with the cross country kids. I volunteered as an assistant my first year, my second year they opened up a paid position. So I took that and everything has fallen into place since.
They've grown tremendously. We have had just piles and piles of season bests and PRs
in just the last week or two of the season, which is all I want to see. It’s all about improvement. That’s what we focus on, and we saw that a lot this year” Coach Olson says when asked about his varsity team. The team consists of 9 runners: Kyle Olson, Adam Wilke, Caleb Olson, Parker Petsche, Keegan Peterson, Liam Kinrade, and Lucas Johnston; not pictured are alternates Beck Miracle, Ryan Zidarich and Cameron Zimmer.
Senior runners are Keegan Peterson, Caleb Olson, and Parker Petsche. All three have
been running cross country since they were in 7th grade, making this their 6th and final year. Caleb has qualified for state 3 of those 6 years, Parker qualified as an alternate last year but got to run this year, and Keegan ran 2 years at state. “My favorite memory was when it was just me who qualified for state, and the entire team came out and watched me. And it was awesome, and I really liked it, and it just made me happy that I had a lot of teammates to support me. It’s just a great memory and I’ll always remember it,” says Caleb, pictured left.
Keegan talks about his favorite moments throughout the season by saying, “I would say the best moment in our career is when everyone does good. Like the whole team, just
the adrenaline. It brings me back to Dubuque Senior my sophomore year, where literally everyone PR’ed and everyone just had such a good time.” Keegan is pictured to the right.
“Within 3 years, we’ve switched from being straight awful to being the big dogs, we’re one of the best teams at state. It’s not luck. We’ve set it up to be good for years to come. This is the best Iowa cross country has been, and we’ve improved along with them,” Parker says, talking about how he and the team have improved over time. The team puts lots of effort into the sport, not just in the fall. Preparation starts in the summer months and continues through late October.
The team has 3 junior runners: Adam Wilke, Lucas Johnston, and Ryan Zidarich. Lucas
has run since he was in middle school, making this year his 5th year. He qualified as an alternate last year but got to run this year. Ryan has run for 3 years and qualified for one year before this. Adam (left) didn’t start running until he was a freshman, making this year his 3rd. This is his second time qualifying in the state meet. “I played football in middle school, but I was pretty bad so I was like ‘I guess I’ll just try this cross country thing’, I liked it, so now I’m doing it,” Adam says.
“I just like the team aspect of it. The warming up for meets, the practices…it’s all pretty fun,” says Lucas. The team gets along well, even the coach had things to say about it. “The best memories are always just
the time you spend with the group of guys that work hard together and accomplish great things together. It builds camaraderie and a brotherhood that’s not like other things. They do a good job and they build a relationship for sure,” Olson says.
Underclassmen include Kyle Olson, Beck Miracle, Liam Kinrade, and Cameron Zimmer. “My whole family is runners, and then my older brother was, so I kind of just had to,” says Cameron when asked why he joined Cross Country. All of these runners have been involved since they were in middle school as well.
Runners start prepping for the season in the summer. “A ton of summer mileage is super important. Cross Country is more of a 6-month season, not a 3-month season, I’d say, because of how much mileage we really do in the summer,” says Caleb. The months of preparation paid off. The Saber Boy’s team was ranked 10th in the state this year and placed 8th at the state run. Caleb came in at 25th with a time of 16:39, Kyle at 62nd with a time of 17:14, Adam at 71st with a time of 17:25, Keegan at 77th with a time of 17:28, Lucas at 105th with 18:02, Liam at 112th with a time of 18:09, and Parker at 113th with a time of 18:10.
“The fun thing about watching kids progress over the course of four years is getting to
see them grow from awkward, gangly freshmen into some really cool people. It develops over time, and they just keep getting stronger and faster each year. And the ones that really want to improve and put work into it over the summer, great things come of it,” Coach Olson said. “The kids worked tremendously hard at all levels, from our beginners to our more experienced guys. They all committed to being the best they can be each night, and giving what we asked them to give and they built such a strong bond through that. That’s what I’m most proud of, it’s the team that gets created over the course of the year. And I’m excited for the future, I think we have a bright future ahead,” he continues. “We wrote our own story,” Keegan says.
Switching gears to our Girl’s Cross Country Runners, one runner made her way into the state meet. Freshman Ashlyn Appleby (right) ran at the state meet on November 1st. She
is coached by Katie Moulton, who also teaches Chemistry at our high school. Coach Moulton has been involved in cross country since she was in high school and has been coaching high school since 2017. She reflects back on this time by saying, “I can’t pinpoint a certain favorite moment, I mean, any time you see somebody succeed at the end of a race, they get emotional from all the hard work they’ve put in. That’s what always sticks out to me. Because so much of it is like, these kids just push their bodies every single day, and to see that hard work pay off at the end of a race or practice, that's the best part. Forming that relationship with the kids makes those lasting memories.”
Even though no upperclassmen moved on to state this year, the team and coach are
both proud of themselves this season. “We only had one senior that joined when she was a freshman, Jenny Claussen, and it's been really fun to see her strength grow. With experience, her confidence, her abilities, we’ve made huge progress. It’s always fun to compare the girl’s times from the beginning of the season to the end,” says Coach Moulton when talking about watching her runners grow.
“One of my favorite memories of the season is probably seeing all my teammates after breaking the school record, getting to just be with them,” says Ashlyn. Camaraderie and team spirit are important to the runners on all of our teams. “It might not be the most fun sport, but the team itself is really fun,” she continues.
Ashlyn keeps herself motivated through hard practices and meets by telling herself “The faster you run, the faster you’re done!” and it works. She might be young, but she is a great runner and a great teammate. She placed 47th in the State meet last Friday and got a sub-20 time.
“I’m just really proud of everybody. You know, we’ve got the boy’s team going to state, we’ve got Ashlyn going to state, but they couldn’t have done that without their teammates. We just hope that momentum will carry on into future seasons,” said Coach Moulton.
“It’s a great environment for everybody, honestly. I mean, it doesn’t matter if you’re faster or slower, there's always room to improve, which most sports don’t really have as much. I think there’s a great team aspect, and a great environment to be around in general. Your teammates hype you up,” says Caleb, when asked about what he would tell younger kids who are thinking about going out next season. “Cross country is a sport for everyone, and anyone can do it. It doesn’t matter what level you're at, if you are fast, slow, somewhere in between, great shape, bad shape, tiny, big, anywhere in between- it doesn’t matter what kind of athlete you are. Everybody has a starting point, and our focus is just helping you get better and stronger, and improve. It’s all about improvement,” agrees Coach Olson. “Just don’t be scared to try something new!” Adam adds.
“The team aspect is a lot of it. It’s such a good feeling,” Lucas says, “The warming up for meets, the practices, the breakfasts we do after we qualify for state, it’s all pretty fun. Even walking from Eldridge all the way to Davenport!” “My favorite cross-country memories are honestly the time spent with the team. That was my experience as an athlete and as a coach. It’s not necessarily the training runs, or the medals and the state meet appearances, the placing and all that,” Coach Olson says, talking about his favorite memories with his team. “I joined because it seemed like a fun sport with a fun atmosphere,” says Ryan.
“I mean, any time you see somebody succeed at the end of a race, they get emotional from all the hard work they’ve put in, that’s what always sticks out to me. Because so much of it is like, these kids just push their bodies every single day, and to see that hard
work pay off at the end of a race or practice, that's the best part of it. Forming that relationship with the kids, those are the lasting memories. When I see them ten years later, and we pick up right where we left off, or you start getting invited to their weddings, it’s the relationships that are really special,” Coach Moulton adds.
“It’s supposed to happen!”
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