ALBANY — The Cheesemakers tried a different strategy for the boys race at the 27th annual Baertschi Invitational. Monroe had its normal lead runners drop back in the pack, with the hopes that the slower runners could keep pace.

“Dylan Fahrney sacrificed himself and did a nice job pulling them along,” Monroe coach Scott Mosher said after the meet held Oct. 12 at the Baertschi Farm north of Albany. “We wanted our top guys to slow down a bit and pull us through in the second half of the race.”

The pack of Cheesemakers, also known as the Hounds on the cross country course, rode their strategy to a sixth-place finish in the large school division. Monona Grove (39 points) won the race, with Stoughton second, Dodgeville-Mineral Point third, New Glarus-Monticello fourth and Mount Horeb fifth.

Fahrney, a senior, was the first Monroe runner to cross the finish line, finishing 36th with a time of 18 minutes, 25.6 seconds. Freshman teammate Zander Slack was next, 38th overall at 18:27.2. Junior Alex Henry (44th, 18:33.2), sophomore Heath Huschitt (51st, 18:39.7), sophomore Lucas Sathoff (55th, 18:42.0) and senior Trevor Boll (58th, 18:51.1) all finished less than 30 seconds behind Fahrney and Slack.

“There’s a strength in a pack,” said Mosher.

Stoughton and MG are expected to be the favorites at the Badger South Conference meet Oct. 19 at Fort Atkinson, while New Glarus-Monticello, Dodgeville-Mineral Point and Mount Horeb are all in Monroe’s Division 2 sectional at Spring Green Oct. 26.

“MG and Stoughton are very good. Our strategy for conference is to go for third place,” Mosher said.

Mosher has pushed his runners more than usual this fall. He has hoped that as the grueling season goes on, the bodies of his athletes adapt and get stronger.

“We’re in a good place. We’ve put in the time, the miles and we’ve got some tired legs. This has been a tough week, but I’m excited to see how it turns out,” said Mosher, who added that his team will taper down its efforts in practice a bit to save some energy for conference and sectionals.

Dodgeville-Mineral Point’s Henry Keith was the meet champion, finishing with a time of 16:58.8, nearly 30 seconds ahead of the next-fastest runner.

Adam Nelson paced New Glarus-Monticello, finishing 16th overall with a time of 18:02.8. Joe Quaglia (28th, 18:16.0), Simon Blohowiak (32nd, 18:20.3), Braylon Hoesly (37th, 18:26.6), Conor McCoy (42nd, 18:30.6) and Ty Ready (46th, 18:36.1) all broke the 19-minute mark.

Brodhead-Juda’s Carter Urness was 35th (18:24.5), while Royce Brauer was 80th (19:23.3). Brady Bruns and Josiah Engen finished back-to-back for the Cardinals in 114th and 115th place. Bruns finished with a time of 19:52.8, and Engen was 7/10ths of a second behind him.

“We had a nice, tight pack,” Brodhead-Juda coach Curt Gratz said.

Host Albany was led by freshman Gage Roth, who finished 68th overall at 19:08.6. Jesse Schwartz was 70th (19:10.0), and freshman Brian Cid (127th, 20:14.2), sophomore Andy Gertsch (148th, 21:18.4) and senior Nathaniel Ross (150th, 21:24.5) all scored for the Comets. Albany was seventh in the small school team standings, with Stateline Home School edging Iowa-Grant and Poynette for the team crown.

There were 173 runners from 24 teams in the boys race, which was run with both large and small schools together. Temperatures were in the low 30s with a light breeze, but the sky was clear. Junior varsity, middle school and an open race for coaches and spectators also took place later in the morning.