Second season ready for Tri-County Area prep cross country runners
The postseason is ready, are the Tri-County Area prep cross country runners?
One thing they'll need to be ready for is the weather. After a warm, sometimes hot and dry late summer and fall, said runners will receive a 180-degree difference this weekend as wet, windy and cooler weather set in for the upcoming conference meets: the Dairyland in Augusta at Memorial Park on Thursday, Oct. 12 at 4 p.m. and the Cloverbelt on Saturday, Oct. 14 at Lake Wissota Golf Course outside Chippewa Falls beginning at 10 a.m.
The Tri-County Area's teams got their last meets of the regular season in last week and some teams and runners found success. At the Owen-Withee Invitational Tuesday, Oct. 3, Fall Creek won the girls race in a tie-breaker over Bruce 41-41. The Crickets' No. 6 runner, Reese Assmussen finished ahead of Bruce's Myrica's Price 17th to 29th. FC's top finishers were Audrey Koehler, fifth in 22:01 and Larissa Johnson, 11th in 24:58. The Crickets next five runners all finished in order together: Rebekah Krenz 15th in 25:51.0; 16). Cora Peterson, 26:13.9 17). Reese Asmussen 26:45.8; 18) Lylian Anderson , 27:12.7 and 19). Kamryn Dahlberg, 27:18. Other FC runners were Paige Aldrich, 21st, 27:51; Iris Vanwormer, 23rd, 28:02; Sophia Schultz, 25th in 28:11 and Ellie Coach, 26th in 30:10.
FC's boys had just four runners in their race at O-W. Marcus Coleman had the Cricket's best finish in 16th in 21:17; Kaden Prock, 22nd in 22:10; Alex Anderson, 24th in 22:35 and Shane Moore, 36th in 25:25.
The Thorp Invitational was on Thursday, Oct. 5 and the Augusta girls had their best finish of the season in second place behind Cadott. Jade Parisi finished ninth in 24:50; Roellas Weiss was 13th in 26:13; C.C. Hanson was 15th in 26:36; Jerri Mackey, 16th in 27:52; Sam Hanson 19th in 28 minutes; Sam Truog, 21st in 28:27 and Abby Boone, 22nd in 28:48. The AHS boys finished sixth out of the seven team competing. No. 14 ranked Prentice-Rib Lake won the meet The Beavers' best finishes came from Preston Schafer, 18th in 20:11 and Damian Sovereign, 19th in 20:15. Also running for Augusta were Damian Fuentes, 40th in 22:05; Kaden Rodriguez, 52nd in 23:52 and Garrett Larson, 55th in 25:31.
Eleva-Strum hosted its own invitational meet on Thursday, Oct. 5 at Central. The Cardinals had three runners finishing in the top 10 with Anabel Howie taking second in 22:42, her teammate Amalia Dyar sixth in 23:25 and Russell Hulett, sixth in 19:24. Also running for the Cardinals were Jillian Awe, 23rd in 29:40 and Alex Awe 33rd in 23:53.
"Our runners really did a nice job following the gameplan for today's meet," E-S Head Coach Martin Walter said. "They went out from the starting line faster on purpose, maintained a good pace throughout the race and then ran very hard at the end of the race until they had nothing left. We had a lot of personal bests today.
This was Howie's final race on her home course and she couldn't be happier for her best finish.
"I'm so happy to get a season best and so glad it was right here and right now," Howie said. "It was definitely exciting."
Durand-Arkansaw won the girls' race team title and Eau Claire Immanuel Lutheran the boys' in the Eleva-Strum meet. Immanuel is the favorite to win the boys' title in the Dairyland meet today and Cochrane-Fountain City the girls while in the Cloverbelt No. 6 ranked Chippewa Falls McDonell is the big favorite in the Cloverbelt meet for boys while defending champ Eau Claire Regis along with Colby and Fall Creek look to battle it out for the girls title
Osseo-Fairchild competed in Old Abe Invitational in Eau Claire on Saturday, Oct., 7. Mason Scheffer had O-F's best finish in the varsity boys race for small schools, taking 49th in 21:05 followed by teammates Jonas Sackmann-Van Hoof, 57th in 27:08 and Casey Bauer 59th in 29:22.. The Thunder's Alyssa Burmesch finished 49th in the girls' small school race in 30:04.
