It was a great day for Mustang Cross Country this past Saturday at the Sectional meet in Menomonie as both the girls and boys teams advanced to the 2024 WIAA State Cross Country Championship Meet in Wisconsin Rapids.
The girls continued their undefeated season with another convincing win finishing with 45 points, well ahead of second place Eau Claire Memorial (76 points) and third place Hudson (106 points).
Junior Lauren McCalla was the individual sectional champion with a time of 18:31. Freshman Bree Barfknecht finished 3rd (19:00), Junior Bennett Schmitt was 10th (19:28), Sophomore Bella Drake 11th (19:31), and Freshman Addison Schuler 20th (20:29).
Also running for the Mustangs were Juniors Kyah Barnhart (21:04) and Sara Palmer (21:25).
"The girls defended their Sectional title from last year and have now won four titles over the past 5 seasons. They continued their undefeated season, beating Eau Claire Memorial and New Richmond - both state ranked teams. It was a nice win." said coach Craig Olson. "It was great to see Lauren win a sectional title, and Bree had a tremendous finish to get third. Bella Drake was very close to her season best on our very difficult course, which was outstanding. The girls are very excited to race at State on Saturday against the best and we're looking for a top five finish."
The boys team finished 2nd at Saturday's sectional meet, very narrowly edging out River Falls. As has been the case all season, the team's strength is depth. All five of the scoring runners finished within 32 seconds of each other.
Leading the pack was Sophomore Evan Olson, who finished 10th (16:34), followed by Senior Peter Cimino in 12th place (16:36), Sophomore Owen Pelzel finished 15th (16:51), Freshman Logan Topper 16th (16:58), and Junior Luke Ray 19th (17:06).
Also running for the Mustangs were Sophomore Noah Winder (17:37) and Senior Ben Bowman (17:41).
"Pack running has been the strength of the team all season, and it came through for us again at Sectionals. The team from River Falls had an outstanding day, but we were able to come out on the lucky end of a couple of close finishes to beat them by a single point," said Coach Adam Toper. "We talk so often about how every place matters, and this will be a great example. The boys have worked awfully hard to get to this point, and now it will be a matter of putting together one more great team race to place as well as we can at the State meet."
An indication of just how deep the talent of this team is, the Mustang's number five runner Luke Ray was the best 5th man in the field by ten places. He would have been the number one runner for five of the twelve teams and would have been top three for nine of the twelve teams. The Mustangs have also been without one of their top runners, Senior Captain Grant Burns who is out with an injury.
The State Meet is Saturday, November 2nd at Ridges Golf Course in Wisconsin Rapids. The girls race at 1:20 pm and the boys race at 3:10 pm.
The teams will be heading out of town along Stout Road at 9:00 am on Saturday morning. Community members wishing to send them off can meet in the Dairy State Bank parking lot shortly before 9:00 am.
