10 Years Ago – MVAO girls qualify for State Cross Country

Published 7:02 pm Sunday, November 8, 2026

By Jenna Comes/The Mapleton Press

Ten years ago (2016) the MVAO girls cross country team qualified for the Class 1A State Cross Country Meet. This was the first time a girls team qualified for State. Members of this team included Karlee Wolf, Morgan Todd, JoHannah McKibben, Jordyn Pester, Aubree Palmer, Linzey Goeddeke and Cameron Brenner. In addition, Jordyn Pester and Aubree Palmer competed at State individually. JoHannah McKibben and Karlee Wolf just missed getting to compete at State individually as they finished 16th and 17th overall and Morgan Todd placed 19th (the top 15 individual runners from the Regional meet advance to the State meet).

In the State Cross Country story in 2016, Coach Alden Berkenpass said, “The girls have a lot of team pride. There have been four different runners that have led the MVAO pack this season. it could be any one of them. In most races this season, the top five MVAO runners have finished within a couple places of each other.”

“Someone asked how do the girls all run together like that, and one of them replied, ‘We all like each other,’” Berkenpas explained.

In 2016, these girls also won their second-straight Western Valley Conference title as they had six runners place in the Top 20.

The Mapleton Press caught up with some of these runners to see what they are up to now. All of them said it wasn’t possible that it had been 10 years!

After graduating, Morgan Todd and JoHannah McKibben continued their running career at Morningside University.

Morgan only ran for one year in college and said cross country her hard work, discipline, and perseverance. Her favorite high school cross country memory was qualifying for state and running with my friends

She is a BSA Officer at Central Bank in Sioux City and lives outside of Anthon with her husband and her son.

JoHannah ran both cross country and track at Morningside as she joined the cross country team her sophomore year.

“I was blessed to be part of such a strong program and to run alongside one of my closest friends, Emalee (Fundermann) Wiley, who was also one of my biggest motivators and pushed me to be better,” JoHannah said. “Together, we earned All-American honors in the 4×800 relay during both the indoor and outdoor seasons, placing highest our indoor season of 2021.”

The MVAO duo also qualified for the NAIA Cross Country Championship in 2019.

JoHannah said there are so many memories from high school cross country it makes it hard to pick just one.

“Moments that I always enjoyed would have to be enjoying Berk’s desserts as an entire team,” she said. “Cross country is both a physical and mental sport and it taught me the importance of caring for the mind just as much as the body to reach your full potential.”

JoHannah currently lives in Omaha and is a Nurse Practitioner with the Methodist Health System.

After high school, Jordyn Pester (Lowe) continued her running career on the track and field team at Wayne State College.

“Cross country taught me mental strength (as a sprinter by nature), long distances were not my favorite but I learned to love the challenge,” Jordyn said. She also enjoyed Berky’s banana bread after practice.

In previous years, Jordyn has helped with the MVAOCOU track program as she wanted to give her time and knowledge to help improve the program that contributed so much to her life.

Jordyn currently works remotely for a workers’ compensation insurance carrier and lives in Holstein with her husband and their two boys.

Karlee Wolf (Seuntjens) said cross country taught her to challenge herself and motivated her to keep trying to get better.

“When I signed up for cross country, I remember thinking running that far sounded terrible,” she said. “So it’s fun to look back and see how much I grew, both mentally and physically, from my first meet to the end of high school.”

Karlee’s favorite cross country was her junior year when Emalee Fundermann and her both qualified for State and they were ranked to finish very low overall.

“We made a deal at the beginning of the race; we would sprint to get ahead of everyone so it looked like we were in the lead for at least a little bit of the race (spoiler: we finished very low overall).”

Karlee married Colby Seuntjens and they bought a house in Danbury last year. She is a licensed elementary school teacher, but is currently taking some time off to stay home with their three kids (their twins were born in mid-October).

She said, “We’ve really enjoyed being back in a small town!”

Cameron Brenner was the youngest member on the team as she was just a freshmen.

She said she learned about teamwork and perseverance and her favorite memories were spending time with Coach Berky as he always had fun stories to share.

“He made sure to make practice challenging but yet fun,” she said.

Cameron Brenner (Frederick) is in fourth year teaching as she is a 5th grade teacher at Shelby. She and her husband live in the Shelby County area and are expecting their first child, a baby girl, this spring.

Other members of the State qualifying team were Linzey Goeddeke and Aubree Palmer.