Area runners get ready for conference, sectional meets
Some high school cross country courses have lots of hills. Others are as flat as a pancake.
Some are designed for speed. Others for endurance and skill.
It all depends on the layout of your local golf course or recreational area trail or nearby school grounds.
The cross country course lain out at Osseo Golf Course is a fast one on the flat landscape and Augusta junior Zale Pettis just loves it.
"It's one of my favorite courses," Pettis said. "It's all speed. You can just go on it and really not have to worry about strategy."
And fast Pettis did run as he won the Osseo-Fairchild Invitational meet held back on Oct. 1 in a 5000-meter time of 16:54, one of the fastest in meet history.
This accomplishment has Pettis thinking big for the upcoming meets ahead: the Dairyland Conference meet this week (Oct. 15 at Cochrane-Fountain City) and the big one Oct. 24 in Colby, the WIAA Division 3 sectional meet.
"When I hit the finish line I still felt I could go another thousand meters," Pettis said. "I really felt strong. I'm really confident going forward."
Pettis' work this year and the accomplishments of the AHS girls' runners has made for a great season for the program and has them looking ahead to these upcoming meets. Conference meets are this week with the Cloverbelt's this Saturday, Oct. 17 at Fall Creek and then the Division 3 Unity Sectional on Oct. 24 in Balsam Lake which will also have Tri-County Area teams such as Osseo-Fairchild and Eleva-Strum.
Ranked conference teams in the Cloverbelt include the defending champs Bloomer girls, ranked No. 16 in Division 1(!), with Stanley-Boyd, Marshfield Columbus and Eau Claire Regis also receiving votes in D-3 while Cadott is No. 5 in D-3 boys with S-B and Regis also receiving votes. In the Dairyland, the defending champ C-FC girls are No. 7 in D-3. As far as the sectionals go, C-FC will be in Colby along with Augusta and Independence/Gilmanton, favorites in the DC girls meet. No. 15 ranked Stratford and No. 16 Marathon will be in Colby and Auburndale is another strong team in the Colby Sectional field for girls along with S-B and Marshfield Columbus. No. 1 Marathon and No. 9 ranked Stratford are the ranked teams on the boys side and S-B received votes in the latest coaches' poll. Over in Unity, the field on the boys' side is tough with No. 5 Cadott, No. 13 Cameron and No. 14 Mondovi along with Eau Claire Regis duking it out for one of the top two spots to go to state as a team. For girls, its No. 5 ranked Cameron, No. 14 Boyceville and Unity, which too received votes in the latest poll.
Augusta's girls are preparing for this tough stretch of races competing against good squad in some recent meets. At Cadott (Whispering Pines GC), back on Sept. 22, junior Laney O'Brien won the girls race in 20:10.3 her freshman sister Aubree O'Brien, 13th in 22:11.1; junior Sophie Bergman, 14th in 22:14.1; freshman Mya Grangaard, 21st in 23:09.8; freshman Tessa Schroeder 24th in 23:21.7; freshman Hadley Bergman, 43rd in 25:15.4 and senior Viola MacDonald, 46th in 25:31.1. Add it all up and it was a Beaver first place finish with followed by Fall Creek with 95 points and Stanley-Boyd 101 as the top three. FC's girls could still have an outside shot at state from the Unity Sectional given their experience as they were led by senior Rylee Winsand, eighth in 21:56; senior and two-time state individual qualifier Audrey Koehler 11th in 22:05; sophomore Paige Anderson, 20th in 23:08; junior Emily Volbrecht, 27th in 24:08; senior Autumn Steinke, 29th in 24:21; senior Iris VanWormer, 33rd in 24:41 and senior Kamryn Dahlberg, 40th 25:06.
Both teams were at the Osseo-Fairchild Invite along with Cameron, Regis, Independence/Gilmanton and solid group of competitive teams. The Comets won with 36 points led by the Schmidt sisters Inez and Aggie who finished 2-3 in the girls race behind I/G's Ally Sylla, who's winning time was 19:58. They had two other runners in the top 20 as well. AHS was only 19 points behind them led by 4 Laney O'Brien, 4th in 20:13; Aubree O'Brien, 9th in 21:44; Sophie Bergman, 10th in 21:46; Grangaard, 15th in 22:04; Schroeder, 31st in 23:18; Hadley Bergman, 36th in 24:07 and Kinley Nelson, 46th in 24:39:00. FC finished fourth with 96 points led by Winsand, eighth in 21:39; Koehler, 11th in 21:47; Anderson 28th in 23:12; Volbrecht 35th in 23:45; Steinke, 41st in 24:18:00; Dahlberg, 42nd in 24:20:00 and VanWormer 43rd in 24:30.
Augusta made a good accounting for itself again at the Thorp Invitational on Thursday, Oct. 8. Also there was Bloomer led by the Hartman sisters (Aliya Hartman won the girls' race in 17:16) and Stanley-Boyd. AHS finished fourth in the nine team field but not far behind the Blackhawks with 69 points to their 31 (S-B was second and the Chippewa Valley Lighting home school co-op team was third). Running for AHS were Laney O'Brien, 7th in 21:00.5; Aubree O'Brien, 14th in 22:17; Schroeder 18th in 23:18; Sophie Bergman, 20th in 23:53; Hadley Bergman, 23rd in 24:11; Grangaard 27th in 25:17 and MacDonald 29th in 25:22.
FC finished fourth again in the small school division at the Old Abe Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 11. Altoona won the meet with 40 points followed by Osceola 46, Independence/Gilmanton 82, Fall Creek 96, Regis 100 and so forth. FC's runners were Koehler 13th in 23:15; Winsand 15th in 23:28.3;; Anderson 17th in 23:35; Steinke, 25th in 24:44; Volbrecht 26th in 24:55; Dahlberg 27th in 25: VanWormer 31st in 25:41 and junior Claire Fischer, 32nd in 26:23.
Osseo-Fairchild sophomore Layne Armstrong-Baglien finished 104th at the O-F Invitational in a time of 31:55:00. This was an improvement upon her time at the Cadott Invite which was 36:53.5 with the same finish and she ran a time of 34:23.0 to finish 91st at the Old Abe Invite.
Pettis finished fifth in the Thorp meet in a time of 17:10. He also ran at Cadott and finished fifth as well in the exact same time of 17:10. His teammates at Thorp did as follows as they placed sixth with 140 points: sophomore Jeremy Christoph, 23rd in 19:00; senior Riley Charlo, 40th in 20:50; freshman Kasen Balts, 45th in 21:40 and junior Ethan Zacharias-Dietzmann, 56th in 24:10. At Osseo-Fairchild, AHS finished ninth in a strong field which included both Cameron and Mondovi defending DC champ and this year's favorite again Eau Claire Immanuel Lutheran in the top three. Augusta's results were after Pettis: Christoph 32nd in 19:16; Balts, 71st in 21:23; Charlo, 77th in 21:41; Thomas Truog, 90th in 22:24 and Ethan Zacharias-Dietzmann, 104th in 24:23. In the Cadott meet, Augusta finished ninth out of 16 teams. Christoph was 36th in 20:23; Charlo 55th in 21:57; Balts 59th in 22:24 and Ethan Zacharias-Dietzmann 65th in 24:36.
Fall Creek's runners will be on their home course for the conference meet and they prepared with the three meets over the past two weeks. At Cadott, the Crickets were seventh led by sophomore Andon Koehler, 31st in 19:36.9. Senior Alex Anderson finished 40th in 20:42; sophomore Aiden Christenson was 45th in 21:11; freshman Vincent Wilkom was 48th in 21:16.5; junior Weston Mielke placed 49th in 21:22.2; junior Hudson Abts finished 57th in 22:04 and sophomore Hunter Munz was 64th in 23:54. At O-F, the Crickets placed just behind Augusta in 10th. Koehler finished 27th in 19:03; Anderson 49th in 20:22; Abts 61st in 21:00; Wilkom 62nd in 21:03; Christenson 66th in 21:06; Weston Mielke was 69th in 21:10 and Munz placed 91st in 22:25. And then at the Old Abe Invite, FC finished eighth out of 10 squads with 163 points. Koehler placed 20th in 19:54; Anderson 25th in 20:21.4; Abts 34th in 20:57; Christenson 41st in 21:28; Mielke 46th in 21:32.8; Wilkom 50th in 22:04.6 and Munz 57th in 25:42.
Osseo-Fairchild also competed in the same three meets although not as a full team. At Cadott, sophomore George Clark had O-F's best showing in 45th at the 20:35 mark. sophomore Kole Bratina was 98th in 24:42; and senior Emerick Korger was 102nd in 25:23. At their own home meet back on Oct. 1 at Osseo Golf Course, all four Thunder runners recorded personal best times. Clark - 19:57 to finish 43rd; Alfons Jesunas - 22:02; Bratina - 23:53 and Korger - 25:30. And in Eau Claire last weekend, O-F's runners were Clark, 45th in 21:37; Jesunas, 56th in 23:03 and Bratina, 60th in 24:43.
