JANESVILLE — The New Glarus-Monticello boys cross country team finished seventh out of eight teams at the WIAA Alternate Fall state championships May 8 at Blackhawk Golf Course in Janesville.
What was even more impressive is that the Knights likely would have been a Division 3 competitor in a normal season — but the COVID-19 pandemic threw everything for a loop. Even still, NGM reached the pinnacle of the state’s spring season despite the other seven schools all being Division 1 programs.
“One of the reason’s we’re here is because they got together in January and started running every Saturday — and they probably ran in between there, too,” NGM coach Steve Wehrley said. “With two weeks to go, they probably ran Monday through Saturday — not hard workouts, but decent ones — and they all ran through and competed at spring break.”
As the temperatures moved to the mid-50s with the sunny skies and light breeze blowing down on the course, runners had conditions almost too perfect to race in.
Eight runners finished the race in under 16 minutes, with champion Jake Bourget of Stevens Point, a future Wisconsin Badger, capping his high school career with the individual title with a time of 15:38.6.
The thing that is so tough, especially being a small school, is hitting your first mile at the right time. Even though we talk about having 20 individual qualifiers, plus all the schools running and their hot stars — you have to be happy with 50th place at the first mile.Steve Wehrley, NGM coach
“The thing that is so tough, especially being a small school, is hitting your first mile at the right time. Even though we talk about having 20 individual qualifiers, plus all the schools running and their hot stars — you have to be happy with 50th place at the first mile. It’s very difficult for inexperienced runners to do it,” Wehrley said. “How do you get that experience? You come here, you put it on the line and see what happens. I know that we did a good job, and we’ll be even stronger in the fall — which is only a few months away.”
Quaglia was the first NGM runner to cross the finish line, taking 37th overall with a time of 17:02.9.
“Joe has one way of running — just go out and run as fast as he can,” Wehrley said. “He doesn’t worry about who is behind him or who is ahead of him, he’s just a very aggressive runner, which paid off as the season went on because he got in better and better shape.”
Quaglia, while pleased a bit with his placement, narrowly missed his timed goal he set out for.
“I was two seconds off of 17, but I’m going to do track and set out 3.1 miles and break it just so I can say I broke 17,” Quaglia said. “Honestly, in the past I didn’t run as much in the summer — I travel a lot. My freshman and sophomore year, I started two weeks into the season and still did really well.”
Reflecting on the past four years, Quaglia was forthright. “I could have done better, if I’m being real honest with myself, but I still did good and I still pushed myself.”
Quaglia also qualified for state multiple times in wrestling and said that cross country was still the hardest sport he’d ever tried. He said the sport taught him about discipline. But the brotherhood within the program taught him even more.
“Honestly, it’s taught me a lot about friendship and bonding. I knew them in school, but because of this, I think we’ll be friends forever and stay in touch,” Quaglia said.
It made it more exciting that we made it with D1, given the amount of people we have and stuff. We’re D2/D3, so it was really exciting. I look forward to seeing how these boys do next year.Joe Quaglia, NGM senior
Tom Nelson, Braylon Hoesly and Brayden Ryan finished 56, 57 and 58 overall with times of 17:45.8, 17:47.8 and 17:51.8, respectively. Ty Ready was 61st overall at 17:55.6, with teammate Evan Guenther behind him by just 4/10ths of a second. Conor McCoy finished at 18:33.4. Belleville freshman Carter Scholey was 23rd with a time of 16:39.1.
Stevens Point won the race with 32 points, while Sun Prairie was second at 69. Green Bay Preble (91) was third, edging out Middleton (95), with Manitowoc Lincoln (115) and Stoughton (150) finishing ahead of the Knights (174). Fond du Lac (196) was eighth as a team.
Three Knights graduate this spring: Quaglia, Ready and McCoy, while the other four are all back in the fall, which bodes well for NGM, which has qualified for state in three of the past four seasons — once in all three divisions, actually.
“It made it more exciting that we made it with D1, given the amount of people we have and stuff. We’re D2/D3, so it was really exciting,” NGM senior Joe Quaglia said. “I look forward to seeing how these boys do next year.”
