Jared Schmeltzer
Reporter
The Merrill cross country team hosted their home meet over the weekend at the MARC; hosting Wausau West and Wausau East on Saturday, Oct. 12. It was a very cold day for the runners, however the Jays would still give a good effort.
“Although the weather was cold, the athletes tried their best despite the conditions and missing some of our athletes due to minor injuries and illness,” said head coach Alyssa Swan.
For the Bluejay boys, they were missing top runners Ethan Cordova and Dominic Laufenberg for the meet. Merrill’s first place finisher this week was Ethan Schelbert with a time of 19:13. Tanner Depies ran one of his best times this season, finishing two seconds behind Schelbert with a run of 19:15. Levi Black (19:23), Kyle Stellingworth (19:33), Callen Hoeppner (19:36), Elliot Hanson (19:45) and David Golish (20:58) rounded out the Merrill boys finishers.
For the girls side Merrill was missing standout sophomore Elizabeth Schmidt, opening the door for Madi Crossman to run the team’s top time of 23:43. Rounding out the lady runners for the Jays were Maddie Drew (24:00), Maddy Vandergeest (24:05), Lily Grefe (24:24), Emma Marlowe (25:18), and Annie Becker (25:18).
With the injury bug affecting the Merrill runners, they are setting their sights on getting healthy before the Wisconsin Valley Conference meet this weekend.
“Our goal this week is to have our athletes healthy and ready for the Wisconsin Valley Conference meet, which we will host.” added coach Swan.
This will be the first time in many years that Merrill is hosting the conference meet. Runners will take off from the Merrill Area Recreation Complex (MARC) starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19.