Iola High Schools annual Doc Stiles Invitational cross country meet was cut short on Tuesday due to excessive heat.
After running the junior varsity races, head coach Marv Smith made the call to cancel the varsity races after two athletes went down during the race.
A female athlete lost consciousness and had to have an ambulance called and later a male athlete also collapsed.
After a meeting of coaches, the decision was made to cut the varsity race after a quick check of the heat index.
In addition to the two JV races, Iola was also able to hold an untimed middle school exhibition one-mile race due to the short distance of the race.
The junior varsity Fillies won their race, placing six runners in the top 10 of the race led by sophomore Averie Sharon with a time of 19:03.
It looked like the Averie of middle school days before a stress fracture wiped out her freshman season, Smith said. I think that our girls appreciated the shorter race but they also looked heat distressed. Putting six in the top eight is dominating but we still got strung out Id like to see us a little more packed. We need a nice cool race day at Central Heights.
Elanie Sturgeon finished second with a time of 19:25, Audrey Coltrane finished third with a time of 19:50 and Lorie Carpenter finished fourth with a time of 20:13.
Ella Taylor finished sixth with a time of 20:42 and Hannah Hall finished eighth with a time of 21:34.
Callie Murcko finished 30th (21:34), Addison Mallette finished 41st (24:50), Jorja Murcko finished 45th (27:27) and Kaylin Klubek finished 49th (28:06).
The junior varsity boys finished third behind Frontenac and Neodesha.
Trenton Varney was out sick on Tuesday which pushed top junior varsity runner Nathan Louk to varsity.
Brett Morrison led the way for Iola finishing ninth with a time of 16:53.
Cal Leonard finished 18th (17:33), Damien Dryden finished 21st (17:39), Blake Haar finished 22nd (17:40), Drake DelaTorre finished 23rd (17:44), Henry Lohman finished 24th (17:46), Grant Luedke finished 29th (18:09), Landon Carson finished 31st (18:20), Colin Long finished 35th (18:25) and Eli Smith finished 71st (24:17).
I liked the way that our 21-35 ran with their separation being less than one minute, Smith said.
The middle school ran after that and while Iola had several top 10 finishes, results were unavailable.
Smith said that a make-up meet would be impossible due to the difficulty of aligning everyones schedule and the time that it takes for Smith and Allen Community College head coach Vince DeGrado and his athletes to set the course up.
Smith also thought of re-running the meet on Monday but with Lawrence-Rim Rock (one of the biggest meets in the country) over the weekend, it just wouldnt work out.
To try and redo this on Monday is an impossible task and several schools said that they would not return because of KU on Saturday and Pittsburg next Thursday, Smith said. So, Doc Stiles 2018 is over.
The Mustangs and Fillies will run at Central Heights a week from Thursday.
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
