MONROE — The air was warm and the turf was damp, but that didn’t stop New Glarus-Monticello from winning the boys title at the annual Bruess Invitational at Twining Park in Monroe Sept. 3.

Adam Nelson finished second overall in the boys race with a time of 17 minutes, 59.9 seconds, five seconds behind Mount Horeb’s Noah Ollendick. Nelson’s NGM teammates Joe Quaglia (4th, 18:10.5), Braylon Hoesly (11th, 18:35.9), Tom Nelson (15th, 18:48.9) and Conor McCoy (20th, 19:19.6) all finished in the top 20, with reserves Ty Ready and Garrett Grossen finishing 25th and 27th.

“Joe Quaglia went out, and he’s not usually considered a No. 1 runner, and he was leading the race for a little bit. He held up there, it was a beautiful race from Joe,” said NGM coach Steve Wehrley. “Adam is so strong and is in such good shape that he will hold a constant pace throughout the whole thing. He ends up being everybody’s bench mark, ‘I’m either ahead of Adam, or I’m behind Adam.’ But by the end of the race, you will not be ahead of Adam.”

The coaching staff is pleased with the youth on the team, as well as the veterans. Hoesly, a sophomore, had a strong spring in track and field and has started the fall in good standing. Nelson, a freshman, is already making a name for himself. The test of the Knights are ready to get back to the state meet, a race they qualified for two years ago in Division 3 before bumping up to Division 2 last fall.

“Tommy is our miracle freshman. Braylon had a great freshman year in track and he is just using that as a stepping stone,” Wehrley said. “You hope people get the taste as a freshman and decide they want more and will do what it takes in the summer to be an athlete. Division 2 and Division 3 has more to do with your preparation and your competitiveness than your talent, except that preparation and competitiveness are talent of their own.”

NGM finished with 52 team points, just three ahead of Wahlert Catholic from Dubuque. Mount Horeb was third (59) and Monroe fourth (70).

“If there’s a downside, now we’ve just ticked off Monroe and Mount Horeb, and that’s not a good idea, but we’ll see what happens,” Wehrley said.

Monroe’s Alex Henry ran strong all race, finishing sixth (18:18.1), while Dylan Fahrney was eighth (18:25.9).

“Alex Henry looked good,” Monroe coach Scott Mosher said emphatically. “At the halfway point we were probably in first place. In the four teams that were in it for the boys, it was within 18 points, which is like nothing in cross country. Despite looking tired — and Dylan Fahrney hasn’t run in a week or so because he’s had an Achilles issue — we were within striking distance and we didn’t even look great.”

Freshman Zander Slack finished 16th overall (18:56.6) and third for Monroe in his first varsity race, with teammates Trevor Boll (19th, 18:59.8), Heath Huschitt (21st, 19:21.8), Tyler Barker (23rd, 19:40.5) and Lucas Sathoff (24th, 19:42.4) right behind.

“Some of our new guys — Zander Slack, Lucas Sathoff — they looked really well. We’re happy with it,” Mosher said.

The next closest team behind Monroe was Beloit Turner, which scored 136 points. Pecatonica-Argyle took sixth (212), led by Payton Flannery (26th, 19:49.8). Belleville (231) was seventh, Lake Mills (236) eighth, and Albany (260) ninth. The Comets have a young team, running three freshmen, two sophomores and one senior on their varsity squad. Freshman Gage Roth was the first Albany runner scores the line (20:41.9). Stockton and Edgerton were the 10th and 11th teams in the standings.

Mosher said he was pleased with the amount of miles put in over the summer by his team, but he’s been pushing his runners already this fall, to the point that he noticed tired legs during the home meet.

“We had mixed results — some people ran what we thought they would, some people ran with tired legs, which isn’t entirely surprising,” Mosher said. “We said as a team that we are upping the intensity and were going to see what we can do in practices. We’ve been working so hard that the legs just didn’t look like they were there, which is fine. They ran competitive and they ran well.”

Now with a baseline for competition times, the Cheesemakers get back into the action Sept. 7 at the Verona Invitational.

“We’ve got to keep working to get better. We have a very tough schedule coming up — Verona is with some of the top teams in the state and we want to see where we can compete with those guys. They have to keep going until they can do the pace that they want to go,” Mosher said.