WYOCENA — Monroe’s boys cross country team finished second in the Badger West Conference meet Oct. 16 at Wyona Park in Wyocena, hosted by Portage High School.
Sauk Prairie was the team champion with 65 points. Monroe (77) was followed by Mount Horeb (82), Baraboo (89), Portage (101), Edgewood (104) and Oregon (181) and Reedsburg (182) off in the distance.
Jared Batz, a Monroe junior, continued his rise up the leaderboards with a fourth-place finish (17:08.56).
“(Batz) ran a phenomenal race. Batz, or Batzatron as we call him, surprised a lot of people with his performance, but with the way he has been improving all season it wasn’t too big of a surprise for his coaches and teammates. His place showed he’s one of the top area runners, and he’s only getting faster,” Monroe coach Scott Mosher said.
Senior Lucas Sathoff was sixth (17:11.94). Both Batz and Sathoff earned first-team all-conference nods in the race.
“He’s been our most consistent runner all year so there was little doubt he would put himself in contention to earn all-conference honors,” Mosher said of Sathoff.
Also scoring for Monroe was Zander Slack (13th, 17:45.84), Anthony Wels (15th, 17:49.21) and Wyatt Stephenson (39th, 19:00.31). Stevenson dropped about two minutes off of his time from just a few weeks earlier, which was huge for the team, Mosher said. Slack and Wels earned second-team all-conference honors.
“This was his first year on the team, making this accomplishment all the more impressive,” Mosher said of Wels.
Not competing for Monroe was senior Heath Huschitt, one of the team’s top runners that has been hampered with injuries all season.
“Had we been at full strength it looks like we would have won by 15 or so points, which shows how well our boys ran considering these teams beat us earlier,” Mosher said. “Earlier in the week we found out that one of our top runners wouldn’t be able to run due to an injury, which was sad for a few reasons. First and foremost we all felt bad for him because he’s such a good person and hard worker who loves running and competing, so the entire team felt bad for him missing this part of the season. A distant second, everyone was disappointed that we couldn’t go into the postseason at full strength.”
Mosher said the team used his absence for motivation.
“We knew the main competition going in ... would be Mount Horeb and Sauk Prairie. Even at full strength we had lost to both teams earlier in the season,” Mosher said.
On the girls side, Monroe finished third as a team (72), behind Oregon (35) and Mount Horeb (46).
“On the girls side we knew we had to run out of our minds to catch Mount Horeb and Oregon. Both these programs have sent teams to State in Division 1 the last few years, so nothing was going to come easy,” Mosher said.
Just a few weeks ago Mosher and his team saw they were trailing Mount Horeb by about 40 seconds a runner.
“Which meant if we needed to be competitive, we had to improve 40 seconds more than they improved,” Mosher said. “That’s a ton of time, but our girls showed they were up to the challenge, and rather than accepting defeat worked even harder. While they didn’t make up the entire amount of time, they did lower that gap to just 24 seconds, so to make up 16 seconds on a quality program in the Badger Conference is quite an accomplishment.”
Sierra McGuire (5th, 20:21.11) was the first Cheesemaker to cross the finish line, followed closes by Jadyn Elgin (7th, 20:39.65). McGuire and Elgin earned first-team all-conference honors, while Alyssa Roelli (10th, 2:55.25) was second-team all-conference.
“Sierra has been our top runner all year and left little doubt that she would be right up in the front of this race. She beat girls that had beaten her earlier in the year, and nearly caught a couple more,” Mosher said. “Injuries have slowed her down the past couple years but she never gave up. She has been incredibly smart with her training and it’s really paid off by running a lifetime best and earning all-conference.”
Kaitlyn Elgin (22nd, 22:02.40) ran a lifetime best, and Ximena Miranda (33rd, 22:49.81) nearly ran to a new PR.
“All in all, it was a great Badger West Conference Championship. We had the majority of our runners run lifetime best times on a course not known for doing this. As a coach it was incredibly exciting to see everyone so focused on doing well for the team and for each other,” Mosher said.
Next up for the Cheesemakers is the WIAA Division 2 Prairie du Chien Sectional on Oct. 23. The state meet at Wisconsin Rapids is the following Saturday, Oct. 30.
NGM boys, girls win Capitol
WATERTOWN — New Glarus-Monticello took home conference championships in both boys and girls cross country Oct. 16 at the Capitol Conference meet in Watertown.
On the boys side, NGM scored 31 points. Tom Nelson finished second overall with a time of 17:26.6, while teammate Evan Guenther was third (17:35.0). Braylon Hoesly (7th, 18:14.6), Ian Schwartzlow (9th, 18:37.9) and Brayden Ryan (10th, 18:45.0) capped the Glarner Knights in the scoring department. Grayson Rodefeld (12th, 19:04.9) and Linden Lounsbury (15th, 19:30.9) finished in the top 15 — without scoring.
Deerfield-Cambridge was second as a team with 54 points, and Belleville was third with 62.
On the girls side, NGM scored 28 points, with Deerfield-Cambridge second (55) and Wisconsin Heights-Barneveld third (64).
Dayna Karls led the way for the Knights, finishing second overall with a time of 21:14.9. Annika Ziperski (21:34.2) was fourth, Lily Maynard (21:39.9) was fifth, Melanie Fink (21:57.5) eighth and Emma Martinson (22:15.3) ninth. Lucy Melvin (11th, 22:22.8) and Camryn Arnett (12th, 22:40.4) placed in the top 12 but did not score.
Reuter wins SWAL boys title
DARLINGTON — Rhett Reuter won the SWAL championship in his final race at his home course on Oct. 16, winning the title with a time of 17:20.5.
The Redbirds finished second as a team with 73 points, two ahead of Albany. Boscobel (63) won the team title.
George West was fourth overall for Darlington (18:00.8), with Ethan Aird (18:26.0) 10th, Ethan Thompson (19:48.4) 27th and Luis Rios (19:53.8) 31st.
Gage Roth led Albany with an 18:05.5, finishing sixth, with teammate Jesse Schwartz (18:17.9) one place behind. Also scoring for the Comets were Brian Cid (19:11.5), Ethan Koss (19:18.2) and Brayden Bakken (19:36.7).
Pecatonica-Argyle was eighth as a team. Ridge Toay (17th, 19:11.3), Sam Nelson (41st, 21:27.4), Abraham White (44th, 21:50.5), Jakob Orloff (49th, 23:31.6) and Aidan Gruenenfelder (52nd, 23:57.3) also scored for the Vikings.
On the girls side, Boscobel (35) won the team title, with Darlington (64) finishing one spot ahead of Albany (65) for second place.
Darlington’s Raquel Reuter was fourth overall (20:52.0). Judith Meister (11th, 21:42.6), Allyson Meyers (21:52.3), Alexis Murray (17th, 22:35.4) and Stella McGowan (19th, 23:03.0) all scored for the Redbirds.
McKenna Broughton (9th, 21:13.4) led Albany, with Ava Ahnen (10th, 21:28.5), Emileigh Dallman (12th, 21:52.3), Payton Wachholz (16th, 22:12.5) and Kaiya Zurfluh (18th, 22:50.3) also scoring.
Southwestern/Cuba City/Benton senior Kayci Martensen won the race by nearly two whole minutes with a time of 18:09.0. Paige Toay was Pecatonica-Argyle’s top runner, finishing 51st with a time of 29:01.8.
Rock Valley Conference Championships
WHITEWATER — At the Oct. 14 conference meet, Brodhead-Juda’s girls team finished fourth as a team with 91 points, trailing McFarland (81), Evansville (50) and Jefferson (49).
Freshman Madi Brown was 10th overall with a 23:23.7 to lead the Cardinals. Anna Skoumal (11th, 23:26.4), Kalena Riemer (17th, 24:06.4), Lexie Lobeck (23rd, 25:06.0) and Olivia Hartwig (30th, 25:36.8) also scored for the team.
Brodhead-Juda’s boys cross country team finished ninth.
Gavin Pinnow (19:56.6) led the way with a 24th place finish. Brady Bruns (35th, 20:44.8), Josiah Engen (36th, 20:44.9), Nathan Engen (39th, 20:59.2) and Sabian Blang (54th, 22:10.7) all scored points for the Cardinals.
