MONROE — The Cheesemakers are coming off a season in which a conference title was just ever so slightly out of reach for both the boys and girls teams. By sectionals for a trip to state, the notion was the same.

“Boys took fourth at sectionals and girls took third — both very close to qualifying as a team to the state meet as the top 2 teams make it on,” said Scott Mosher, Monroe’s coach. 

Sierra McGuire and Jadyn Elgin were Monroe’s individual state qualifiers. McGuire was the team captain and an all-conference runner, and has since graduated. Also gone for Monroe are co-captains Alyssa Roelli and Ellery Bazley on the girls side, and all-conference runners and captains Lucas Sathoff and Heath Huschitt on the boys side.

“Both girls and boys turned it on at the end of the season last year and looked like teams that can contend for Badger Conference Championships and state meet berths. They look like runners who are not only not afraid to compete hard, but are also willing to work hard to get better,” Mosher said. “We lost some very good runners from last year that will be tough to make up their production. We have some very talented but young runners where this is always a learning curve. We also lost some vocal leaders so a challenge will be to see who steps up to show the new runners how to compete at a high level.”

The girls squad returns juniors Elgin, Ximena Miranda, Skye Dickson and Katrina Sathoff. On the boys side, Jared Batz, Anthony Wels, Wyatt Stevenson, Benjamin Erdley and Padriac Houston all return. 

“We have experience coming back for the girls and boys that will help with the younger athletes knowing what to expect throughout the season. Both girls and boys have very good talent up front and then depth coming back to round out the Top 5. This will be a season where we might rotate through who is on varsity just because of the depth we have,” Mosher said.

He’s also excited for the newcomers joining both squads this fall.

“We have a strong group of incoming freshmen that we hope can contribute to the varsity team. These include Miley Hansen, Mary McKenzie, Aniya Jackson-Bey, and Maria Garcia. We are also adding sophomore Reaghan Schmelzer who had a very strong track season as a freshman and is looking to help out,” Mosher said. “We also have a strong group of Freshman Boys coming out this year.”

Tre Dammen, Brady Keehn, Lane Scace, and Eli Schaefer are all promising freshmen, and then there are other athletes new to the sport this fall.

“We also added a couple new runners that had strong track season that didn’t run cross country before in Caden Oudinot and Teylon Hampton. Along with these guys, we also are adding some athletes who want to get in better shape who might surprise themselves and be good distance runners: Jack Dubach, Christian Carpenter, and Jakar Broitzman.

Mosher said the Badger Conference is always tough to compete in because of the high enrollment and the sheer number of runners the other schools can get compared to Monroe, the smallest public school in the league. 

“Oregon has a very nice program that is always in contention to win conference. Edgewood is another team that will be in contention because they get top kids from all over southern Wisconsin to compete for their team. I expect Mount Horeb to be up there, as well as Sauk Prairie,” Mosher said.