Topham makes history with fourth state title

FORT DODGE —Rebekah Topham didn’t get much sleep the night before her 1A girls’ state cross country race.

“It was so much stress,” she said.

Topham no doubt slept much easier Saturday night after winning her fourth 1A girls state cross country title at the Lakeside Municipal Golf Course in Fort Dodge.

With the win, Topham is the first ever Iowa high school girls cross country runner to win four state titles and the second person ever to do it in Iowa High School History.

Mark Johnson of Mason City won state cross country titles four times from 1969-72.

“It’s kind of hard to believe that nobody has done it before,” Topham said. “It’s surprises me because there’s been a lot of good runners in Iowa.”

Topham knew the chance was there for her to win four state cross country titles.

“I just took it year-by-year,” she said. “My last year, they were telling me if I won next year, that I would be the first one ever for girls.”

Topham thought about the race and competition as the race drew closer. However, once the gun went off, she said, it was all good.

“Usually I don’t get too nervous. It was kind of different,” Topham said. I just felt a lot more pressure to be the first one to win four and all that.”

With Topham’s win, Griswold finished third as a team at the state meet, recording a team score of 133 points. Pocahontas Area won the state meet with a score of 79. Pekin took second with 98 points.

“She’s all team and that’s what makes her so special,” Rebekah’s father and Griswold coach Jeff Topham said. “More special than winning four in a row is that she’s such a team player. She’s huge on being team.”

Topham won the race with a time of 14:32.2, nearly 26 seconds ahead of Gwynne Wright, a junior from Pekin.

“I was just going to follow her and pass her in the last spot, but I felt like I could be going faster so I just went ahead and passed her,” Topham said.

Coach Topham said the focus was for her to run and win.

For much of the race, it was Topham staying behind Wright, waiting for an opportunity to take over the lead.

With the windy conditions, Topham stayed behind Wright, letting the junior deal with the wind.

“She just wanted to make sure that the other girl was doing the work against the wind,” Coach Topham said.

Topham was the only Griswold runner in the top 20. Alyx Flippin missed out on the top 20, but took 21st with a time of 15:56. 

Topham and Flippin are both key seniors and they’ve provided a lot to the team, according to Coach Topham.

“I think the leadership part is huge. They’re not the type of leaders that go around talking a lot and a lot of hype, they lead by what they do,” he said. “They work hard.”

Leah Lappe was 49th with a time of 16:42.1. Alyssa Wyman took 64th with a time of 17:03.3. Anna Young was 80th with a time of 17:16.9. Payton Rush finished 98th with a time of 17:41.3. Bridget Maurer was the final finisher for Griswold as she took 125th with a time of 19:11.3

Coach Topham was happy with the outcome of how the team did, saying that every girl had a good race.

“I think that’s the best we could have done because those other two teams were in a class by themselves,” he said.