The Hatchet cross country team blasted out of the starting box into a new season at Ashland last Thursday.
The girls captured third place of nine teams while the boys ran a steady fifth.
“For the girls to place in the top three teams is a credit to their confidence level and their early season training,” THS coach John Zuelsdorf said. “Despite not bringing our best finishing kicks to the table, we got out strong and ran tough through to the finish. Stephanie (Welke) has been doing all the right things to bring this youthful girls team along in practice and at meets making sure that they are ready to race and doing all the right things to prepare. Her experience and leadership will help this team reach their potential this year.”
“Bryan (Tomek) went out with the lead pack, working with the #2-#5 runners throughout the race, passing two and nearly catching a third in the last 800 meters. His strength is his kick and he feels very confident when he needs to use it. Bryan and six of eight returning veteran teammates improved their times from last year at Ashland. Despite the fifth-place team finish, the boys can be proud of their efforts as a team, especially considering half of our boys were competing in their first high school race.”
Welke (7th, 17:58), Dani Whiting (9th, 18:26), Alex Zedler (18th, 19:13), Emmy Larson (27th, 19:35) and Audrey Dichsen (29th, 19:41) scored, while Tayln Jones (51st, 20:54), Kayla Gass (71st, 22:25) and Kaitlin Gaedtke (73rd, 22:27) trailed.
Tomek (3rd, 17:13), Ryan Kuehn (19th, 19:09), Troy VanStrydonk (29th, 20:03), Jacob McGuire (37th, 20:35), Austin Kaiser (38th, 20:38) capped the tally, while Vic Ierulli (45th, 20:54), Tyler Wittmann (52nd, 21:11), Ben Bartz (54th, 21:21) and Jared Jarvensivu (56th, 21:23) were nearby.
The Hatchets will heavily rely on youth this year.
“Our sophomore class really shined at Ashland as we had four of our top six girls and six of our top eleven boys come from that class,” Zuelsdorf said. “Several of those male athletes are new to cross country and still learning about themselves and how to keep pace thru a race.”
The meet offered a twist for the team.
“The Ashland Invite has some quality teams that we don’t get to compete against during the year and helped to expose our weaknesses and provided the coaching staff with some important feedback on things that we can work on,”
Superior (53) and NWern (77) outpaced out the THS girls (89).