On a cool day at the Lakeside Golf Course in Fort Dodge the ACGC boys finished in eighth place at the class 1A state cross country championship on Saturday. The Chargers had a total of 194 points, finishing three points behind Pekin of Packwood which finished seventh. All of the teams that finished higher than the 10th ranked Chargers were ranked higher than ACGC in the final poll announced last week. Noah Nelson paced ACGC with a 12th place finish among all runners and a 6th place finish among runners which had full teams. The 12th place finish in 16:43.3 earned him all state honors which are awarded to the top fifteen individual finishers. Nodaway Valley was crowned the 1A champion.

Clay Billheimer was the second ACGC runner and finished in 17:49.2 good for 36th among runners with full squads and 65th overall . He was followed by Garrett Young (17:58.4; 46th and 79th), Carter Schildberg (17:58.5; 48th and 81st), Quenton Spack (18:11.9; 58th and 98th), Ben Young (18:31.9; 70th and 113th), and Easton Benson (18:38.2; 73rd and 116th).

On the girls' side, Kate Crawford finished third overall with a time of 19:15.5 which earned her all state honors for the second consecutive year. Crawford won the meet in 2016, and has consistently been among the top runners in the state this season. Two other Charger harriers also competed, with Emma Swanson finishing in 23rd place with a time of 20:26.5 and Lauryn Embleton running the course in 21:06.1, good for 41st place. Hudson won the 1A team championship.