The Bluejay cross country teams came up a little short of their goals in Saturday’s WVC Meet at Wausau’s Nine Mile Forest.
The boys ranked fifth of seven Valley squads while the girls finished seventh.
“We had a plan to stay with Wausau West this Saturday and come away with a third-place finish, but the West boys pulled ahead and stayed ahead of our pack, and we just didn’t have the steam to finish it up,” MHS coach Craig Hoffman said. “And, then to our surprise, our boys were beat by Wausau East who we’ve beaten every time we’ve met them this year.
“Our times were better, but our competitive edge needs to be addressed before we meet our sectional competitors this coming Saturday. I’m hopeful that our senior boys will put on a spectacular finish before their cross country running careers come to an end, because they’re deserving of it.”
East topped the boys by 20 points. Merrill scored with Reese Beyersdorf (21st, 17:52), Jacob Jensen (23rd, 17:54), Brady Schmelling (26th, 18:07), Brett Swan (35th, 18:33) and Treven Oberg (38th, 18:46), and Losha Heisinger (41st, 19:01), Nathan Koch (47th, 19:29) and William Leischer (49th, 20:03) competed.
The girls used scoring from Christa Schleif (45th, 24:21), Kennedy Soderberg (47th, 24:23), Mickenna Comstock (49th, 24:47), Morgan Pettit (50th, 25:42), and Rachael Romanowski (51st, 26:04). Sarah Gessler (52nd, 26:22), Elizabeth Danielzak (53rd, 27:20) and Katie Bagley (54th, 27:27) also ran.
“The end results didn’t show how much our girls have come along this season,” Hoffman noted. “Key absences, recovering injuries and new injuries proved too much to overcome our showing this past Saturday. We just didn’t have a good showing, no way around it. It’s hopeful that we can better ourselves next week at sectionals.”
Team standings–Boys– SPASH 24, D.C.E. 68, Wausau W. 80, Wausau 123, Merrill 143, Wis. Rapids 144, Marshfield 184…….Girls–SPASH 21, Wausau E. 65, Wausau W. 78, D.C.E. 82, Marshfield 139, Wis. Rapids 196, Merrill 242.
The Bluejays will run in Saturday’s WIAA Sectional at Stevens Point’s Standing Rocks Park, starting at 4:00 p.m.