Times drop at Owen-Withee, Altoona meets

THORP-GILMAN CROSS COUNTRY

The Thorp-Gilman cross country teams finished a busy stretch of three meets in six days with season-best times across the board, a third-place finish from the girls and fifth-place effort from the boys at Tuesday’s eight-team Owen-Withee Invitational.

Augusta and Bangor tied for first place in the girls race with 49 points. Since Bangor didn’t have a sixth runner, Augusta won the tiebreaker. Thorp-Gilman’s 67 points beat Osseo-Fairchild (101), Bloomer (107), McDonell Central (115) and the incomplete teams of Lake Holcombe-Cornell and Owen-Withee.

Shaylie Zarza led Thorp-Gilman with a fourth-place finish in the field of 40 runners. Her time was 21:52.6 and trailed Bailey Peterson of Augusta (19:02.7), Anna Fronk of Bangor (19:17.9) and Bliss Knox of Bangor (21:20.1). Madelyn Windl was seventh in 22:08.1.

Kate Schraufnagel was 13th in 23:43.2, Pepper Rae Werner was 20th at 24:44.2, Gilman’s Abby Krug was 25th at 25:32.3, Rachel Boehlke was 29th at 26:20.3 and Cera Philson was 32nd at 26:41.3.

Luke Schraufnagel led the boys with a 17th-place time of 19:12.3, while Braxton Starck (20:11.6) and Jacob Barth (20:15.4) were 28th and 29th. Walker Horgan came in 33rd at 20:49.9 and Danny Mathison was the fifth scorer at 21:29.9. Syrus Rondorf was 41st in 21:48.8, Hunter Kodl was 45th out of 59 runners in 22:24.2 and Tyler Hughes was 50th in 23:23.8.

Dan Anderson of McDonell Central won the race in 16:32.2, 2.5 seconds ahead of Bloomer’s Lucas Anderson. Augusta’s Kyle Shult was third in 17:11.5.

McDonell topped the team standings with 33 points, followed by Bloomer (55), Bangor (74), Augusta (96), Thorp-Gilman (124), Owen-Withee (154) and the incomplete teams of Osseo-Fairchild and New Auburn.

Thorp-Gilman will next compete at the Cloverbelt Conference championships in Fall Creek on Saturday, Oct. 16.

Altoona meet

Thorp-Gilman’s girls place fourth and the boys were seventh Saturday at the seven-team Altoona Invitational, held at Tower Ridge County Recreation Area.

Zarza, Windl and Kate Schraufnagel earned top-12 finishes in the girls field of 37 runners with some of their best times of the year. Zarza was fourth in 23:07.9 behind Peterson (20:13), Greta Peters of Altoona (21:49.9) and Janelle Schesel of Stanley-Boyd (22:28.5).

Windl was ninth in 23:59 and Schraufnagel was 12th and broke 25 minutes for the first time this fall in 24:50.1. Werner was 24th in 27:05.4, Boehlke was 30th in 28:12.4 and Philson was 32nd in 29:29.4.

Augusta won the team trophy with 46 points, beating Ellsworth (51), Altoona (58), Thorp-Gilman (64) and the incomplete teams of Stanley-Boyd, Cadott and Eau Claire Immanuel Lutheran.

Luke Schraufnagel led the boys with a season-best time of 20:13.9, good for 19th out of 54 runners. Starck was 29th in a solid 21:44.9. Kodl (23:41.9), Horgan (24:06.6) and Rondorf (24:10.9) were 41st, 42nd and 43rd. Hughes was 48th in 25:08.4.

Ellsworth’s Alex Pazdernik won the race in 17:05.8, while Immanuel’s Andrew Lau (17:32.4), Cadott’s Peter Weir (17:32.8) and Shult (17:48.4) also finished in less than 18 minutes.

Altoona won the team title with 44 points and was followed by Ellsworth (57), Stanley-Boyd (83), Eau Claire Immanuel (106), Augusta (117), Cadott (140)

and Thorp-Gilman (157).