Counting down the top 10 sports stories of the year for Indianola High School with #7. The Indianola girls cross country team once again had high expectations and a lot of talent returning for the 2020 fall season, after making the state meet for the past several seasons.

The Indians placed third in their class 4A district meet to advance to Fort Dodge, then had several standout performances despite facing some nagging injuries to place 15th. Sophomore Emily Naughton placed 19th individually with a time of 19:27, and said of the squad last year their offseason work despite the lack of a spring track season or summer team runs they came together to achieve their goal of making state.

“Without track, it was hard to not get any coaching or spending time with the team, so it was a lot more individual work in the summer, but we knew what we had to do and we all worked hard this fall to get to this point.”

CJ Johnson also qualified as an individual on the boys side, placing 43rd individually on the boys side with a time of 16:46.