JANESVILLE — The Monroe girls cross country team finished 11th while the boys were 28th at the giant Midwest Invitational Sept. 24.
“There were a lot of teams and competitors at this meet,” said Monroe coach Scott Mosher. “It was ideal conditions on a fast course so we got to see some fast times. This is always a fun meet just with the sheer volume and talent we get to compete against.”
Freshman Miley Hansen led the Cheesemakers with a 41st place finish with a time of 20:05.1. Monroe’s next four runners — all scoring — finished within 62 seconds of Hansen.
“What makes our team so tough is we don’t have a number one runner who placed in the top 10 to give us a low score, but instead relied again on pack running,” Mosher said. “Almost all of the teams ahead of us had multiple medalists and/or runners in the top 10, while our top finishers was 41st. This was our 4th race of the year and we’ve had 4 different girls be our number one.”
Scoring for Monroe included junior Jadyn Elgin (50th, 20:13.5), junior Skye Dickson (84th, 20:43.9), freshman Mary McKenzie (88th, 20:47.4), and junior Ximena Miranda (115th, 21:07.2).
“Miley and Jadyn Elgin ran nearly the whole race together, and then Miley turned on another gear and ran a blazing fast time of 20:05. Jadyn also ran a personal record time of 20:13. Skye Dickson, Mary McKenzie, and Ximena Miranda rounded out our Top 5 and all ran personal record times. The gap was only 1:02 between our 1 and 5, which is outstanding,” Mosher said.
Waunakee (102 points) won the girls team title, finishing ahead of Hinsdale Central, Ill. (149), Mequon Homestead (180) and Madison West (217). Monroe had 378 points. Forty teams participated.
“The girls keep improving in leaps and bounds and are working hard to achieve ambitious team goals this year. They don’t seem to care who has the individual success because they get that if they do well individually, they also will do better as a team,” Mosher said.
On the boys side, Monroe was 28th (714) out of 48 teams. Senior Jared Batz (47th, 16:47.9) broke the heralded 17-minute mark to lead the Cheesemakers, with freshman Tre Dammen (72nd, 17:08.5) also nearing the milestone time.
“(Batz) broke 17 for the first time in his career, which is always a benchmark that differentiates runners. Our second runner is freshman Tre Dammen, who also nearly broke 17, running 17:08. Not many freshmen ever break 17 so this was an exciting result,” Mosher said.
Also scoring for Monroe were junior Wyatt Stevenson (115th, 17:35.4), sophomore Padriac Houston (237th, 18:45.8) and senior Anthony Wels (243rd, 18:49.3).
“All boys ran well but we need to close the gap between our 1st and 5th runners if we want to have success in the big meets this year, as right now we are at 2 minutes and really need that to be no bigger than 1:30,” Mosher said. “As a team we saw a lot of improvement today. We aren’t where we need to be to reach our team goals, but are heading in the right direction. More important than the time improvements, our athletes are showing improvement in knowing how to race.”
Oconomowoc won the boys team title with 78 points, followed by Gurnee Warren, Ill. (150), Verona (165) and Arrowhead (230).
Mosher also noted that the Monroe Middle School girls team participated in the grades 4-8 race, finishing second.
