—Photo by Julie Vinsand, The Gowrie News The Southeast Valley boys cross country team celebrates after winning the Twin Lakes Conference meet on Saturday in Lake City.

LAKE CITY — The Southeast Valley boys captured the Twin Lakes Conference title on Saturday, as Cooper Nuss was the individual champ.

The Jaguars finished with 57 team points, just ahead of Sioux Central (64). Pocahontas Area (76) was third, followed by Manson Northwest Webster (123), South Central Calhoun (132), Alta-Aurelia (150), GTRA (169), Emmetsburg (185) and East Sac County (193).

“It always means a lot to win the conference title and being able to do it in back-to-back years with this group just makes it that much more exciting,” said Southeast Valley head coach Travis Nuss. “We hadn’t had all seven of our varsity runners run their best on the same day yet and (Saturday) was the closest we had been to that all year, nor had we won a meet all year.

“This group of seniors, juniors and a couple of the sophomores have been running together since junior high. This group is constantly looking at the results of other meets and have a good idea who their competition is before the meet. They understand the importance of placing to score the best as a team and it showed.”

On the girls side, Pocahontas Area was the team champion with 66 team points.

Nuss finished in a time of 17:50, 12 seconds faster than teammate Oscar Hanson (18:02). Asa Haub (19:11) and Zach Thompson (19:21) were 16th and 17th respectively. Carson Suchan (19:36) rounded out the Jaguar scoring in 21st place.

“We knew going in Cooper and Oscar had a great chance of going 1-2,” Nuss said. “They’ve been going back and forth all year. Oscar has had some really great meets the last two races and Cooper had a strong of great races before that.

“We hadn’t really had a meet yet this year where both of them had really put it together on the same day. To see them pull away in the final mile to seal the deal and take the title and runner up honor was great to see. Hopefully we can use that momentum as we head into the state qualifying meet on Thursday and extend our season to the state meet.”

East Sac County’s Parker Engel (18:17) turned in a fifth place performance. Pocahontas Area’s Ben Berte (18:20) was sixth, while teammate Adam Axman (18:42) rounded out the Top-10. Joseph Ricke (18:58) was 13th for the Indians.

Manson Northwest Webster’s Lane Moline (18:23) was seventh and Carson Widlund (19:26) was 18th for the Cougars.

South Central Calhoun’s Tristan Blair (19:06) placed 15th and teammateNathan Burley (19:31) was 20th.

Emmetsburg’s Fabian Bowman placed ninth (18:33). West Bend-Mallard’s top finish came from Damon Fehr (19:55) who was 25th.

Behind the Indians in the girls team standings were Sioux Central (67), Manson Northwest Webster (74), South Central Calhoun (89), Alta-Aurelia (113), Emmetsburg (147), East Sac County (154) and Southeast Valley (209).

Alta-Aurelia’s Nora Peterson (19:36) was the girls’ champion, followed by Linnea Blom (20:32) of Sioux Central.

The Indians placed four girls in the Top-15, with their final runner in the 18th spot.

Kaitlyn Schuler (22:18) had the highest finish for Pocahontas Area in ninth. Akaysa Duitscher (22:33), Paige Melohn (22:36) and Abby Oberhelmen (22:46) were 12th, 13th and 14th respectively. Natalie Point (23:19) was 18th.

For the Cougars, three of their five counters were in the top five. Preslie Oswald (20:55), Paige Condon (20:55) and Alyssa Richman (21:23) occupied the third, fourth and fifth spots.

Amber Aljets (24:17) was 29th and Amber Dangelser (24:56) was 35th.

South Central Calhoun’s Breanne Patterson (21:52) and Chloe Judisch (21:58) were seventh and eighth, while teammate Alexia Nelson (23:12) was 17th.

East Sac County’s Emma Schroeder (21:45) was sixth. Emmetsburg’s top finish came from Isabel Doyle (22:56) in 16th. Lexi Welter (23:59) had the top finish for West Bend-Mallard (23:59) in 25th.