Stratford girls win Pittsville meet

Tiger boys take second

Stratford’s varsity girls cross country team got off to a great start this season on Thursday by winning the Pittsville Invite championship. Meanwhile, Stratford’s varsity boys cross country squad surprised its head coach with a second-place finish in Pittsville.

Kevin “Tiny” Michalski returns for his fifth season as Stratford’s varsity head boys and girls cross country coach. Assistant coach Brenda Skaya is back for her fourth season. Michalski is excited about the potential of both the varsity boy and girl runners in 2022.

“The boys will be led by Cree Defoe who has worked his tail off this summer, as have a lot of the kids,” Michalski said. “Lance Kreig is our senior and the leader of team; he is looking to have a strong senior year coming off a great spring track season, and we are looking for big things out of Lance. Newcomers Garret Zuelke and Mathias Kaiser will be a big boost to the team. Kaden Foster and Derek Wiese have put in the work over the summer and will give us a lot of depth.”

He has the same amount of excitement about the girls squad this season.

“The girls team will have great depth and will be strong up front led by Kayla Casperson, Ella Heidmann and Breleigh Skaya,” Michalski said. “Samantha Mielke has worked hard over the summer and is going to be a solid runner in our top five. We have a great mix of seniors and younger runners. The girls have worked hard over the summer and have come into the season ready to go.”

Stratford’s varsity girls squad won the Pittsville Invite with a low team score of 27 points. Casperson took second place in 22 minutes, 7.3 seconds while Skaya was fourth in 23:42.6; Heidmann fifth in 23:47.4; Mielke seventh in 24:33.6; Wenzel ninth in 25:15.2; Kaylie McHugh 11th in 25:35.5; Mercedes Kramer 14th in 26:13 and Bailey Linzmeier 18th in 27:00.

“The Pittsville meet was a great start to the season as Kayla was second overall all and we had five girls in the top nine and eight in the top 20, which is what you need to be successful in cross country; it really shows the work that was put in over the summer,” Michalski said. “Kaylie McHugh came out of nowhere to run a great race. If we can stay healthy, we hope to contend for the conference championship and go to the state tournament. Having Kressa Wenzel back healthy will be a big boost for us.”

Stratford’s varsity boys cross coun­try team took second place at the Pittsville Invite with 65 points, just one point higher than champion Pittsville with 64. DeFoe took fourth place in 18:58.5, Krieg was 10th in 19:46.3, Zuelke 14th in 20:23, Kaiser 17th in 20:55, Foster 24th in 22:02.3 and Weise 26th in 22:13.3.

“How the boys did in Pittsville was a bit of a surprise,” Michalski said. “We had a lot of unknowns going into the meet, because it was the first cross country meet or first first at the varsity level for a lot of our guys. It was huge for our boys to finish second in Pittsville because it shows we have depth because Ethan Heeg who is one of our top runners, was not able to compete. Kaden Foster and Derek Wiese stepped up big time. Newcomers Mathias Kaiser and Garrett Zuelke ran a great race, especially since it was Mathias’ first varsity cross country meet and Garrett’s first ever cross country meet. The guys, just like the girls, worked so hard over the summer which was really shown by Brandon Gebelein in Pittsville, because he improved his time from last year by six minutes which shows how hard he worked during the summer.”

Michalski enjoys seeing his boy and girl runners improve in meets during the season.

“Overall, I really love the team this year because our runners are hungry and willing to work hard and they are such a great group of kids,” he said. “It really is a joy to work with them.”