Home cooking suits THS harriers

The Hatchet girls pushed their conference dominance past a decade when they wrapped up their 11th straight title on Saturday, including five consecutive in the GNC.

The boys settled for an individual title from Bryan Tomek to go with a solid third-place finish.

"After the phenomenal number of seasonal bests and PR's last weekend at our invite, we had concerns that we may be a little 'flat' for our GNC meet this weekend," THS coach John Zuelsdorf said. "Those fears did not materialize as our athletes once again showed up ready to compete and they collectively performed at yet another level. Nineteen Hatchets exceeded their time goals with PR's, that's nearly 2/3's of the entire team!

"This group has been amazing all year as they continue to improve nearly each and every race. What really seems incredible is that the difficulty of the course doesn't even seem to factor into the equation.

"The girls responded to the pressure of going after a record-breaking 11th conference title in a row. They competed and didn't just run for time, and that's the attitude a team has to have at this time of the year to be successful. We couldn't be more pleased with all of their efforts."

Stephanie Welke ran 2nd overall in 16:12 to pace an easy girls win. Alex Zedler (5th, 16:33) and Dani Whiting (6th, 16:34) joined her on the GNC First Team, while Emmy Larson (12th, 17:00) rated Second Team. Audrey Dichsen (22nd, 17:31) capped off the win and Talyn Jones (29th, 17:43) ran.

"Stephanie was not to be denied that individual runner-up spot in the conference as she established herself by the 800 meter mark and surged off of every turn to outdistance the next group by nearly 100 yards," Zuelsdorf said. "She places herself in an elite group of athletes from Tomahawk with her fourth First-Team All-Conference finish."

Tomek put up a time of 16:22 to capture the boys' event, and Ryan Kuehn (8th, 17:27) earned Second Team. Troy VanStrydonk (18th, 18:04), Austin Kaiser (27th, 18:42) and Jacob McGuire (29th, 18:47) closed the scoring, and Dakota Tomek (33rd, 18:56) and Jared Kiander (35th, 18:57) ran strong.

"After beating Lakeland last weekend at our invite, our boys had aspirations of going after Medford and being in the thick of the chase for the title," Zuelsdorf said. "We knew for that to happen we would have to close the gap between our #3 and 4-5-6-7 group. We did just that, but as we improved so did Medford and Lakeland was equal to the task. Their depth was just too much to overcome. Our overall time grouping was much improved over last year's race.

"Bryan knew that after racing hard at our invite last week, he had to back off the gas a little this week. He basically fed off of the other runners in the lead group and then surged in the last 1000 meters shaking all but the runner from Pines, who he easily out-kicked in the last 200 meters. He is strong and confident and should be one of the sectional favorites."

Team standings- Girls-Tomahawk 47, Rhinelander 72, Lakeland 79, Mosinee 95, Antigo 109, Medford 114, N. Pines 138.......Boys-Lakeland 48, Medford 56, Tomahawk 83, Antigo 108, Rhinelander 122, Mosinee 133, N. Pines 145.