Hawks fly through forest course at Auburndale Invite
AUBURNDALE CC INVITE
The Prentice-Rib Lake girls earned their highest team finish of the season, while Adam Granberg’s 13th-place finish paced the boys during Tuesday’s Auburndale Invitational, the Hawks’ final tune-up before next week’s Marawood Conference meet.
Most of the Hawks on both teams either beat or came very close to their previous best times of the 2021 season on Auburndale’s new school forest course.
The girls’ second-place finish was a credit to the team’s depth as only two of the meet’s seven teams had the necessary five runners to create a team score. Stratford wound up with a perfect team score of 15, while the Hawks had 50. Athens, Auburndale, Columbus Catholic, Pittsville and Spencer all had less than five runners in the field of 31.
Senior Kylee Goodrich had led the Hawks by taking 13th in 23:42.6, Leah Thums was 16th in 25:00.9 and JeAnn Johnson also made the top 20, taking 18th in 25:10.5. All of those times were season bests.
Lydia Holm was 24th in a season-best 27:33.6. Hawks Cristy Hartmann (29:23), Ryean Gorski (29:26) and Amy Espinoza (33:57.7) were 29th through 31st.
Auburndale’s Jordyn Karl (20:12.2) and McKenna Zieher (20:58.1) used the home-course advantage to take the top two spots, while Stratford’s Ella Heidmann was third in 21:19.2. The Tigers had seven of the top 11 runners.
The boys race featured 51 runners and was won by Columbus Catholic’s Andrew Scheer, who finished in 17:50.2 and beat teammate Isaac Scheer by 11.1 seconds. Nathan Wolf of Athens was third in 18:03.7.
Granberg’s 13th-place time was a season-best 18:50.5, while freshman Jack Regier also cracked the top 20 with a 19th-place time of 19:22.1. Will Hartke wasn’t far behind, taking 21st in 19:39.2.
Ben Petersen was 23rd and got under the 20-minute mark for the first time at 19:59.1. Ryan Buehler was 25th in 20:06.7 to complete Prentice-Rib Lake’s scoring. Elijah Scott was 30th in 20:41.1, Matthew Schmidt was 33rd at a season-best 20:45.9, Reese Isaacson was 37th in a season-best 21:33.3 and Connor Highfill was 43rd in a season-best 22:54.2.
Athens won the meet with just 43 points, beating Auburndale (71), Stratford (76), Pittsville (94), the Hawks (101) and Columbus Catholic (105). Port Edwards and Spencer were incomplete.
Also of note from Tuesday’s meet, Prentice-Rib Lake achieved a perfect team score of 15 to win the middle school boys meet. Henry Regier was first in 12:07.1, Josh Hartke was second in 12:17.8, Evan Lord was fourth in 12:29.2, Hagen Isaacson was sixth in 12:43.8 and Eliah Harding was seventh in 12:56.4.
The Marawood Conference championships are set for next Thursday, Oct. 14 and will be hosted by the Phillips Loggers.
