STOUGHTON — The young New Glarus-Monticello girls cross country team reached the WIAA state meet with a stunning second place performance May 1 at the Stoughton sectional.

“It’s been years since we qualified both a boys and girls team to state,” said head coach Steve Wehrley. The last time it happened was in 2009. “It’s a hard thing to duplicate.”

The Knights, made up of four freshmen, two sophomores and a junior, scored 92 points — well behind champion Oregon (31), but with plenty of space to spare over third-place Stoughton (128). 

“I really thought we were fourth. In our wave we were second to Oregon, which has a very strong team, and we all knew in the second heat there would be some good teams. And with the weather, who would have thought the second heat would have been slower than the first,” Wehrley said.

Despite cool temperatures and gusty winds, the Knights ran relatively packed together in their wave of seven teams. By the halfway point of the race, the thick clouds gave way to a full sun, changing the course of soft and cool to warm and almost dry within minutes. Many in the crowd thought the changing weather would bode well for the teams in the second wave.

“In that second heat, those people were so fast and so many people were packed together,” Wehrley said. “With those lead runners way out in front of them, we didn’t know how many people were going to get in-between. This was a real hold-your-breath situation.”

Instead, outside of the lead runners in the second wave, the front pack was behind the first wave’s pace. Even more, the pack had a large grouping of runners, and as racers sprinted down the final 300-meter stretch, enough positions changed hands to keep NGM — and even Stoughton — from being overcome.

Milton (137) won the second wave, but finished fourth overall, followed by Janesville Craig (153), which was fifth. Monroe (192) finished seventh, with Brodhead-Juda (197) narrowly behind for eighth place, and Belleville (219) ninth of the 12 teams. 

Freshman Lily Maynard (21:02.545) was the first Knight to cross the finish line, taking fifth overall. Sophomore Annika Ziperski (22:00.892) was next in 13th place, followed by junior Dayna Karls (17th, 22:30.461).

“The last two years we had captain Molly Molencamp set the standard for the younger runners of what you should be. Dayna is the oldest girl on the team now and this year’s captain, and she has done everything perfectly and followed in that way,” Wehrley said. 

Freshmen Melanie Fink (22:46.995) and Emma Martinson (23:16.566) rounded out the scoring for the Knights, with sophomore Tenley Faber (35th, 23:24.049) and freshman Lucy Melvin (48th, 24:41.236) also competing in the race. 

Regardless of what happens at the May 8 state championship at Blackhawk Golf Club in Janesville, Wehrley and his team understand that expectations will be raised again in the fall, as everyone is back.

“They’re good, and we’ve talked about this before — you know you’re good, but do you want to be great. There’s that offseason training, which is the well-known secret of cross country,” Wehrley said. 

McIntrye, Elgin reach state

Brodhead-Juda senior Madelynn McIntyre finished second (19:37.680) at the Stoughton sectional, punching her fourth ticket to state.

“It’s so exciting. I was really hoping we were going to get this cross country season,” McIntyre said. 

McIntyre, who will run at UW-La Crosse in the fall, led for much of the race. With about 1,000 meters to go, Oregon sophomore Dasha Vorontsov turned it up a gear, passing McIntyre. Vorontsov won the race with a time of 19:26.756. She said at state on Saturday, she’ll have to push even harder for the full 5,000 meters, let alone the final 1,000.

“I just have to keep pushing — push myself to go out as hard as I can on this last race of high school cross country for me,” McIntyre said.

Getting to race closer to home is also something McIntyre is looking forward to. While the typical state championship is held at Ridges Golf Course in Wisconsin Rapids, the alt-fall destination is less than 40 minutes from Brodhead in Janesville. That means she doesn’t have to drive up the night before and stay in a hotel.

“She’ll get to sleep in her own bed. It’ll be a nice time,” Gratz said.

Monroe freshman Jadyn Elgin continued her impressive season with a 10th-place overall finish (21:30.919). The top five individuals whose team did not advance to state also qualify for the championship event. 

“We knew that Jadyn would have a chance to qualify, but it would be close,” Monroe coach Scott Mosher said. “Jadyn showed a lot of toughness and poise, just as she did all season. This was her first race running with lots of girls around her because the other races were with less teams. She grinded the entire time and put herself in position following the first wave.”

Elgin is the first Cheesemaker to reach the girls state race since Rachel Meier in 2016, and the first freshman in the girl’s program to appear since Cortney Heaslip qualified with her team in 2003.

“Jadyn worked very hard all off season and season and is very deserving for this extra race,” Mosher said.

Monroe junior Alyssa Roelli finished 24th overall (22:51.018). Kaitlyn Elgin (49th, 24:48.260), Jenna Brower (52nd, 24:50.842) and Marlies Brandli (57th, 25:08.825) all scored points for Monroe. Freshmen Skye Dickson (62nd, 26:30.335) and Anna Polnow (64th, 26:46.058) also ran. All seven runners are eligible to return in the fall.

“Every girl ran times near their season best and gained great experience for next year since we have every girl coming back next season,” Mosher said.

McIntyre’s teammate Kalena Riemer, a freshman, was 14th overall (22:12.885), with Presleigh Arnold (42nd, 24:00.288) also scoring strong. Jada Burkhalter (68th, 27:35.981) and Kylie Raupp (71st, 28:04.761) also scored points for Brodhead-Juda. Lexie Lobeck (28:06.671) was 72nd overall, and Taylor Midthun (30:46.127) was 76th. 

“It’s always interesting when you get all the divisions together for one race. I thought we had some really good races. Maddy ran great, and we had a really nice race out of Kalena Riemer,” Gratz said.

Despite the shorter than usual season, Gratz said his team faced all the usual weather-related challenges running in the spring compared to the fall.

“We had kind of everything this spring — we had the wet race, the cold race, the hot race, the perfect race. We’ve had all the weathers even though the season was short,” Gratz said.