The 2025 Iowa high school cross country season has come to an end, as four KLGA area athletes competed at the state meet hosted at Kennedy Park in Fort Dodge, with Algona’s Gavin Weber, West Bend-Mallard’s Tyra Schupbach, and Bishop Garrigan’s Julia Swift all collecting state medals, while North Union’s Alexis Cummins placed 71st in class 1A.
In Friday afternoon’s class 3A race, Weber took on one of the most loaded fields in Iowa class 3A history, placing 12th in 16 minutes and 12 seconds to take home his first career cross country state medal. Weber says although the race wasn’t perfect, he was happy with the effort.
Weber got out of the chute quickly at the start to avoid a bottleneck around the first turn on the course, quickly getting into fourth place in the opening stretch of running before the pace settled in. After the top four runners in 3A crossed the one mile marker in 4 minutes and 43 seconds, Weber led the chase pack through in 4:54. The Algona senior felt he spent a bit too much time in front of his pack blocking the heavy breeze on the course for his competitors.
Although Weber fell back from 5th place to 9th during the second mile, crossing the two mile timing mat in 10:13, he found himself 10 seconds ahead of the 15th place runner, the final state medaling place in each class. Weber kept a close track on his place in the race and tried to land some well-timed surges.
Weber built enough of a margin to hang on for 12th place, a 28 place and 47 second improvement from his 40th place finish in 16:59 as a junior. Algona Coach Pete Waltz felt Weber battled in the tough conditions against even tougher competition.
Waltz feels the building blocks for Weber’s all-state finish were put into place during the previous track season and over the summer.
Weber reflected on the end of his Algona cross country career.
Waltz commended Weber for being a stellar teammate.
On Saturday afternoon, the girls class 1A race featured three KLGA area athletes. West Bend-Mallard senior Tyra Schupbach capped off a decorated cross country career with her third cross country state medal, placing 5th in 19:03 for her highest finish and best time on the Kennedy Park course. After missing out on a state medal by fractions of a second last season as a freshman, Bishop Garrigan’s Julia Swift would not be denied this time, with a 13th place finish in 19:38. North Union junior Alexis Cummins narrowly missed a season best, clocking in with a time of 21:21 to place 71st in her second career state appearance.
According to Schupbach, the nerves going in to her final cross country race were less than she felt in previous years.
After some issues navigating the early traffic on the opening straightaway, the Wolverine senior moved hard to put herself squarely in the chase pack consisting of the runners in second through seventh place by the mile mark, crossing the mat in a split of 5:46.
After getting into the right position by mile one, Shupbach knew exactly which runners she had to battle with to secure a top five finish.
The race continued to come together nicely for Schupbach, who sat in 5th place after crossing two miles in 11:52, as she felt a second wind at that point in the race.
Schupbach held strong in the last mile to maintain her top five position, a goal she had set out for herself prior to the race. After crossing the finish line for the final time on the West Bend-Mallard cross country team, Schupbach felt pride for her accomplishments.
Meanwhile, Bishop Garrigan’s Julia Swift stuck herself right in state medal contention early in the race, placing herself in 13th at the mile marker in a split of 5:57. Swift was focused on getting herself into a better early position than she did last year as a freshman.
Swift was able identify some familiar faces she had raced against in recent weeks, which helped her know she was in the right spot to compete.
By mile two, Swift was in 15th place, the final state medal position, with the next four runners all within four seconds and hoping to knock her off the medal stand. Swift was able to move up one spot to 14th with a half mile left, and then passed one more to get into 13th, protecting her first state medal with the finishing kick. Swift knew it would be a tight margin to hang on to a medaling spot.
Bishop Garrigan Coach Brandon Rowley says that after coming heartbreakingly close to a state medal last year, he was proud of Swift for putting it all together this year at state.
According to Rowley, it was the small details of the race that made the difference for Swift.
Rowley felt the entire Bishop Garrigan girls cross country team, including Swift, made big strides forward since the first meet of the season, and will now need to have a fully-dedicated summer to take another step forward next season.
North Union junior Alexis Cummins capped off her season finishing in 71st place in 21:21, returning to state for the second time after her previous appearance in 2023. Cummins says the biggest focus of her race was to push the effort after the first mile.
Cummins says there’s nothing that compares to the environment at the state meet.
The Warrior junior says she is motivated to put in the training to return to state again next season.
