Kaycee Pittman has qualified for the 2025 State Cross-County meet north of Ft. Dodge by finishing eleventh in a Class 2A State Qualifying Meet at the Eagle Grove Golf Course on Thursday. The meet was the third of her life at the five kilometers (3.1 miles) distance. The Greene County senior has been a volleyball player each year of high school and earlier this month decided to add cross-country for the first time. Now a five sport athlete, Pittman also plays basketball and softball, and runs track. She’s the first female from Greene County to make it to State since Haley Hall did it in 2017. Noah Hinote, a 2025 graduate ran at State the previous three years, so Pittman makes it four years in a row the Rams have had a State qualifier.

Thursday’s State Qualifier had Pittman covering the distance in 21 minutes, 38.43 seconds, the best of her three meets. The top 15 runners and top three teams are automatic State Meet qualifiers.

Sophomore Rylee Mowrer was 30th in 22:39.27, followed by senior Ava Minnehan, 69th in 27:10.75, senior Leah McCormick, 76th in 28:37.77, and Gwen Simmonds was 80th in 32:21.39.

Van Meter won the girls’ title with 53 points and they will be joined at State by Dike-New Hartford, second with 66 points, and Jesup, third with 73. The Rams were seventh among 11 teams with 223 points.

The Greene County boys had the misfortune of having their top runner, junior Brady Carstensen, deal with a medical condition and wasn’t able to finish the race. About two-thirds into the 5K, Carstensen was running in eleventh place. Sophomore Nick Black led the Rams with an eighteenth place finish in 18:02.10, needing to shave about 10 seconds off his time to be in the top 15 and make it to State. Senior Jaden Koller was 40th in 18:54.88, followed by sophomore Kole Johnson-Peterson, 47th in 19:28.22, junior Eli Carstensen, 74th in 20:28.65, and junior Maddox Carstensen, 75th in 20:30.10

Denver won the boys’ title with 43 points, followed by Okoboji, Milford with 95, and Van Meter 105. The Rams were tenth among 14 teams with 247 points.

Jeff Lamoureux is the head coach of the Rams and Snowy Anderson is the assistant coach.

Pittman will run at Kennedy Park north of Ft. Dodge on Friday morning, Oct. 31 at 10 a.m.