The Hatchets cross country teams overcame serious obstacles to post fine finishes in Saturday’s Bill Smiley Invite in Wausau.
“As coaches we always circle the Smiley Invite on our calendar,” THS coach John Zuelsdorf said. “It offers a high level of competition as it attracts teams from different areas of the state that we don’t normally get a chance to compete against. This year’s meet drew state-ranked teams from Shorewood, Madison Edgewood, Little Chute, Boscobel, Albany, Chequamegon, Kiel, Marathon, and Phillips.
“Unfortunately for Tomahawk, in each race we had one or more of our scoring athletes have some sort of issue. Cramping, tweaking old injuries, sickness, all seemed to be the general theme of the day for many of our athletes and we just couldn’t get mentally on task.”
Junior Dani Whiting captured the overall D2/3 race for her third title of the season in a PR 15:27, helping the girls to a runner-up finish in D2 and third in D2/3. The boys ended up 10th in the 14-team D2 field and 15th of 33 in the D2/3 combined.
“Dani ran another stellar race,” Zuelsdorf said. “She sized up her competition early, made a nice move and finished strong. She, too, was not feeling at the top of her game physically, but she didn’t let it negatively affect her performance. Maggee Renn had another outstanding race and handled the big field with a veteran-like approach.”
Backing up Whiting were Claire Kuehn (27th, 17:16), Renn (39th, 17:42), Talyn Jones (52nd, 17:58) and Emmy Larson (82nd, 18:37). Alex Zedler (97th, 18:47) and Kate Krueger (141st, 20:09) also competed.
The boys lost Tyler Wittmann mid-race, but battled with Troy VanStrydonk (47th, 18:38), Austin Kaiser (66th, 19:06), Jacob McGuire (70th, 19:12), Lucas Tjugum (102nd, 19:45) and Andrew Olson (138th, 20:26).
“In the boys varsity race, after Tyler started cramping up, Troy, Austin, Jacob, and Lucas didn’t panic as they responded by passing on average over three dozen athletes in the last two miles each,” Zuelsdorf said. “That’s amazing and gave them lots of confidence in their finishing abilities that we will build on the second half of the season. It was also nice to get Troy back and get a race under his belt.”
“All in all we learned a lot about “Big Race” strategy with our varsity squads that we will work on so that come tournament time we can be performing at our best.”
Phillips undercut Kiel 109-193, while the THS girls (201) beat out Chequamegon (205) and Boscobel (207) for third in the D2/3 combined. Shorewood (75) bested Chequamegon (127) for the boys’ combined title. THS was 15th at 419.