Iola cross country starts season strong

CARBONDALE — Iola High’s football team couldn’t get its offense up to speed in their season opener Friday, a 35-0 loss to Santa Fe Trail.
“I don’t know if we showed up for play one, we gave up a quick score and offensively, we couldn’t sustain any drives,” coach Doug Kerr said. “So, the defense got tired early being out there for too many snaps.”
The story of the became evident in the opening drives for both teams.
Iola started with a quick three-and-out.
After a good punt return, the Chargers’ offense took control early, scoring on its first drive.
Running back Darric Cashier rushed into the end zone on a 12-yard run.
After another three-and-out on offense, the Mustang defense was back on the field.
A fumble recovery gave the Mustangs great field possession at the Charger 36. But nothing came of it as the Mustang offense gave the ball back on downs.
The Charger’s offense took advantage. Quarterback Weston Gloss connected for a 51-yard touchdown pass with his receiver to take a 14-0 lead as the first quarter came to a close.
Another failed fourth-down conversion stalled a potential Iola drive early in the second quarter.
This time the Gloss got Iola’s number again late in the half, with a 66-yard touchdown pass, easily beating the Mustang secondary. The Chargers took a 21-0 lead into halftime.
Santa Fe Trail’s Chaz Wright ran back the third-quarter kickoff 74 yards for a touchdown to put the game out of reach. Cashier capped the scoring midway through the third quarter on a three-yard run.
The Mustangs were held to 84 yards of total offense — 59 yards on the ground and 25 through the air. Iola was held to three first downs. The Chargers had 333 yards of offense.
Kerr noted 14 of Iola’s 22 starters on offense and defense had never started a varsity game before Friday. Conversely, returned 16 seniors.
Kerr said that they looked like they were ready to turn their season around. Santa Fe Trail went 1-8 in 2013, and hadn’t won a home game in more than seven years — until Friday.
“We were very tentative on defense and I think that hurt us early,” Kerr said. “(The Chargers) were excited and giving them that early touchdown built up their momentum.
“Right now I think we are developing a passing game,” he continued. “And until you can develop a passing game that can hurt people, they’re going to stack up the box and make you earn it.”
The Mustangs host their homecomiGARNETT — Iola’s cross country team gutted out impressive results at the Anderson County Invitational Thursday afternoon. The middle schoolers and junior varsity teams flooded the medal stand.
“The reason this is a very good first meet for us, is that we don’t train for a meet,” coach Marv Smith said. “We don’t even come up here for a competitive event. It’s usually way too hot to do the training you want before the season.
“We’ll get after it at Fort Scott next week, but we just come up here and go with the flow and see what it gets us. We ran pretty well today.”
The seventh-grade girls had three runners in the top five in the 17-runner one-mile race. Elysia Kunkler took the top spot with a time of 6 minutes, 44 seconds. Kelsey Morrison followed with a 6:52-minute mile. Rachel Bycroft came in fifth with a 7:50 mark and Kyree Hanson placed eighth with a 7:59-minute mile. The top three times medaled.
“Kunkler and Morrison were not bashful,” Smith said. “They ran at the front immediately and Rachel Bycroft is competing with calf muscle problems or we might have swept all of the medals.”
For the seventh-grade boys, two more runners medaled. Calvin Delich had the top Iola time — for second place overall — of 6:08 in the mile race. Elijah Fawson followed, placing third with a time of 6:18. Brady Wiggins and Dominic Ellis rounded out the top 20 runners. Wiggins ran 7:15 and Ellis 7:30. Iola had seven other runners finish outside the top-20.
“Delich and Fawson came to off-season conditioning during the summer and it paid off,” Smith said. “Seven of the 11 runners did not start cross country until the beginning of practices and have had very few days of workouts.”
The course for Iola’s eighth-grade boys was two miles. Smith said that really hit the team hard.
Jack Eyster finished eighth with a 15:15 mark. David Petty came in 12th, running the two miles in 16:45. Jacob Burcham followed in 18th with a time of 20:24.

OLIVIA TAYLOR started off the high school team well, winning the girls junior varsity 4k (2.5 miles) meet. Taylor finished with an overall time of 19:39. Klair Vogel and Addie Prather finished 56th and 57th.
“Olivia is a freshmen running her first 2.5 mile race,” Smith said. “We expected her to do very well based on her success in middle school distance running.”
Smith said he would have ran Taylor in the varsity division, but he was concerned about her competitive nature and the heat. She took the lead near the end of the first mile and no other runner came close to her time, with the next runner finishing almost a full minute behind.
Kendall Jay represented the JV boys well, placing second with a time of 21:52 minutes in the 5k (3.1 mile) race. Ryan Easter finished in the top-20, placing 17th in 25:11.
“This was an excellent race for Kendall,” Smith said. “Since we had moved all of our practice times back to 6:30 p.m., his soccer practices took him away from cross country practice.
“Soccer and cross country are very compatible, but I was still a little surprised by his race.”
The varsity girls were led by Abigail Taylor, finishing the 4k in 18:59. She placed 13th. Megan Klubek finished in 15th place with her 19:00 time. Jo Lohman came in 42nd with a time of 22:44.
“What a tough field in this race,” Smith said. “Baldwin won the state title last year and returned the nucleus of that team.”
Smith said Klubek was Iola’s number one runner until Taylor passed her with about 800-meters to go. Lohman was running in her first race since her sophomore year — she’s a senior — and was in trouble after the first mile with her breathing.
The varsity boys ran a 5k race. Baldwin took five of the top six positions in the race. Kohl Endicott and Braden Plumlee didn’t finish too far behind. Endicott placed eighth with a time of 19:07. Plumlee took 10th with a 19:34 mark. Isaiah Fawson finished in 20:39, good enough for 22nd. Blaine Klubek finished the race in 22:15 minutes, placing 27th. Travis Hermstein, Jonathan Tidd and Thomas Elder fell outside the top-30.
“Our first four runners had very good outings,” Smith said. “Travis runs ahead of Isaiah and Blaine in practice and this was a case of Isaiah and Blaine having good days and Travis just surviving.”ng game against Prairie View 7 p.m. Friday.