MONROE — The local cross country season opened with the annual Bruess Invitational at Monroe’s Twining Park on Aug. 29. The host Cheesemakers won the boys varsity race in a tiebreaker over Mount Horeb, and in the girls race, New Glarus-Monticello ran away with the title, with Monroe finishing second.
“I haven’t seen too many ties for first, and even more incredible is third place was just two points back. We preach to our runners how every place matters and this is a perfect example,” said Monroe coach Scott Mosher.
Both the Cheesemakers and Mount Horeb finished with 88 team points, so the winner came down to the sixth-place running for each squad, where Monroe sophomore Padraic Houston (20:52.0) won by over 40 seconds and 11 places.
Dubuque Wahlert (90) was the third-place team, with Albany (118) fourth, Belleville (140) sixth, and New Glarus-Monticello (169) eighth.
Mount Horeb senior Joseph Stoddard won the race with a time of 16:35.2. Belleville’s Carter Scholey (17:00.4) was second, followed by NGM’s Tom Nelson (17:20.2).
Monroe was led by Jared Batz (5th, 17:59.9), and freshman Tre Dammen (18:59.9) was ninth.
Other scoring Cheesemakers included Anthony Wels (13th, 19:30.1), Wyatt Stevenson (29, 20:22.9) and Benjamin Erdley (32nd, 20:28.8).
“Jared Batz was our top finisher placing fifth against some of the top runners in the state. He had a great summer of training and will have many more fast finishes. Next was Tre Dammen who ran smart, not getting out too fast and moving up throughout the race. You don’t always see this from a freshman. Tre has even more in the tank and we will see Tre take a lot of time off in the coming meets,” Mosher said.
Ethan Koss paced Albany (14th, 19:33.1), with Brayden Bakken (15th, 19:34.8) right behind. Brian Cid (18th, 19:52.4), Kaleb Broughton (21st, 19:59.2) and Drew Sertle (50th, 21:37.5) also had scoring runs.
For New Glarus-Monticello, after Nelson’s third place finish was Tanner Gardner (30th, 20:24.5), Ian Schwartzlow (31st, 20:25.1), Linden Lounsbury (44th, 21:11.0) and Kaleb Welhouse (61, 22:17.7).
On the girls side, Melanie Fink paced not just New Glarus-Monticello, but the entire field, finishing with a time of 21:31.0. Teammate Ruthie Zuber finished third overall, and second in team place scoring with a time of 21:51.0.
Also scoring for the Glarner Knights were Lily Maynard (4th, 21:53.8), Molly Olson (5th, 21:57.6) and Emma Martinson (15th, 22:57.5).
Monroe finished in second place with 70 points, well behind NGM’s top-scoring mark of 27. Jaydn Elgin led the way, scoring seventh at 22:16.8, followed by Mary McKenzie (12th, 22:44.4), Ximena Miranda (13th, 22:52.6), Aniya Jackson-Bey (18th, 23:37.0) and then Miley Hansen (20th, 23:48.2). McKenzie, Jackson-Bey and Hansen are all freshmen, with Elgin, Miranda and No. 6 runner Katrina Sathoff (25:31.7) juniors.
“Jadyn Elgin does what Jadyn Elgin does and ran strong and put herself in contention for a top place. Entering her Junior year I can’t recall a bad race from her. As a coach you love having runners that are that consistently fast that you know you can count on each and every race,” Mosher said, adding that the other five runners also impressed. “It was a fantastic start to the season and has us way ahead of where we thought we would be as a team.”
Also impressing was Skye Dickson, a junior who recently spent time at an education trip to India, where she was unable to train, yet still won the junior varsity race right away upon return.
“Skye Dickson won the JV girls race in a near personal record (PR). She spend a few weeks in India at the end of the summer and not only missed the first eight days of practice but also wasn’t able to run while there so we weren’t sure what type of shape she’d be in. She showed us she is primed to have a great season,” Mosher said.
Albany finished fifth in the team standings with 102 points, just behind fourth-place Mount Horeb (99). McKenna Broughton (3rd, 21:51.4) paced the Comets, with Ava Ahnen (9th, 22:25.9), Linsey Mueller (25th, 24:14.0), Emerson Briggs (26th, 24:23.8) and Abby Hollis (39th, 27:23.5) also scoring.
Mosher said the Monroe coaching staff was pleased with what they saw from both the boys and girls in the first meet of the season.
“It was a surprise for the coaches because half of both rosters are either freshmen or brand new to cross country, so we had a lot running their first ever Cross Country race,” Mosher said. “This can often make doing well difficult because a 5k isn’t like a 100-meter dash where you just run as fast as you can the entire race. It usually takes a few races to figure things out. That makes the success even more exciting because there are a lot of runners on our team that don’t have a clue how fast they can be.”
