INDIANOLA — The Ottumwa girls cross country team will rise again.

The Bulldogs’ Kevin Lewis is almost at the peak.

Lewis will make a return trip to Fort Dodge and he’ll run there on a major high.

Each OHS cross country team was in action at the district/regional meet in Indianola on Monday.

Lewis shined as he won his ninth race of the season in as many tries. He’s ranked fourth in Class 4A and this will be his second state meet in a row. Lewis finished 67th in 2008 up at the state meet in Fort Dodge, held at Lakeside Municipal Golf Course.

“His confidence is so high right now and it’s getting higher each time he wins,” said Smith, about Lewis’ 9-9 effort in 2009.

Lewis won this race in a time of 16:41, 10 seconds better than Des Moines Roosevelt’s Conor Wells.

Lewis is in a position where his competitors are waiting for him to make his move, something he did at the half-mile mark and never looked back.

Needless to say, Lewis has a target on his back and a burgeoning reputation of dominance.

“They were looking to using him as the rabbit, helping pull them around,” said Smith.

The Ottumwa boys team placed seventh with 203 points.

As exhilarating a race as it was for Lewis, it was the flip side for head coach Steve Green’s Bulldogs. They were hit by the flu bug and ran to a disappointing sixth-place finish. Green stated if the meet was held on its original date of last Thursday, some of his runners wouldn’t have been able to run, they were that sick.

“I thought we’d be out of the woods today, but you could see some of the girls weren’t at full strength,” said Green.

The hopes were so high for the Bulldogs, who won back-to-back CIML Metro titles 13 days ago. Ottumwa was gunning for its third state tournament appearance.

It just wasn’t meant to be.