BURLINGTON — If this is truly going to be Marv Smith’s final season at the helm of the Iola cross country program and if Thursday represented his final time coaching the Mustangs and Fillies in a league championship meet, then his 2016 team gave him a heck of a send-off.
After the races, the coach — who has spent 50 years coaching at Iola High School in some capacity or another — was reminded of a quote he gave the Iola Register over 30 years ago after another meet when his team dominated. “We took all of the hardware home except the starter’s pistol,” Smith recalled.
On Thursday, the 2016 team, who were all still a decade away from being born when Smith first said those words, impressed him enough to repeat them to the Register once more.
The Mustangs and Fillies each were able to win league team titles and Iola senior Kendall Jay was the Pioneer League’s individual champion.
The Mustangs and Fillies have each shared a similar strategy the entire season. They don’t rely on their ‘star power’ to win races, they know they have the depth on both rosters that if they aren’t in the top-five individually in a race, they will make up that ground later on.
This was on full display for the Mustangs on Tuesday.
“The fact that we did what we wanted to do, we knew that would be able to win it for us,” Smith said.
The race, which featured three different league’s championships and 169 runners, saw three Yates Center athletes finish in the top-six overall and it appeared as though the Three Rivers League Champions would win the overall Burlington Invitational championship too, but then the Mustangs began their parade across the finish line.
First, it was Jay with his 17:25.9 in eighth place.
“I felt great, because as a team I knew we would be able to do very well and the team has been driving me to keep doing better in practice Jay said. “When you practice hard, you get better overall.”
Fellow-senior Braden Plumlee was next with a 17:44.91 to take 11th. Plumlee finished third in the Pioneer League.
The third of the Mustangs terrific trio of seniors was Isaiah Fawson. He finished with 18:06.61 and took 13th overall and fifth in the Pioneer League.
Sophomore Cole Regehr finished 19th overall and sixth in the Pioneer League with a 18:24.92.
Elijah Fawson concluded the runners that are normally tallied together to figure a team score with a 18:46.1 to finish in 26th overall and 11th in the league.
