Raiders conquer the hills at Gartzke Flowage
MEDFORD CROSS COUNTRY
You’ll rarely see personal best times set at the Gartzke Flowage cross country course outside of Antigo but, much like Timm’s Hill, it is a hilly course where successes are earned and the Medford Raiders earned plenty in a small five-team meet Tuesday evening.
The Raiders earned their first outright team sweeps of the season one week after sweeping the Large School divisional titles at Marshfield in Tuesday’s meet, seven girls were top 10 finishers and the boys put four runners in that race’s top 10.
The girls remained undefeated through four meets, dominating the field with just 23 points. Rhinelander (63), Mosinee (67), Merrill (98) and incomplete Antigo filled out the team standings.
Meredith Richter won her third meet of the fall with a time of 22:26.4, which put her 16.1 seconds ahead of runner-up Britt Fitzgerald of Mosinee. Mosinee freshman Taelyn Jirschele was third in 23:03.6, then it was a pack of red coming across the finish line.
Raider Ella Daniels took fourth in 23:42.4, followed by teammates Lindsay Kahn (23:46.6), Bjorg Risa (24:01.9), Mallory Richter (24:16.8) and Brooke Rudolph (24:20.8). Ella Dassow was 10th in 24:47.5, 9.6 seconds behind Rhinelander’s Sophia Miljevich.
For Daniels, a junior, and Dassow, a sophomore, these were their fastest times on this course with Daniels dropping about 1:09 from last year’s invite.
The rest of Medford’s girls lineup was new to the course but did well. Freshman Morgan Liske just missed the top 10, taking 11th in in 25:01. Riley Clark placed 18th in 27:24.9, just ahead of Esmeralda Anderson (27:37.4). Lillie Gleichauf placed 24th out of 46 finishers in 28:52.1, Kylie Potvin was 27th in 29:07.7. She had run the course two previous times and this was her second-best time. Freshman Kaelynn Balciar finished her first varsity race in 31st place at 30:15.1.
The boys got their win by compiling just 27 points, seven fewer than GNC rival Rhinelander. Merrill (75) and Mosinee (85) were well off the pace and Antigo did not field a full squad.
Tanner Hraby set his new best Gartzke Flowage time at 19:24.6 while taking second out of 31 runners. Antigo senior Logan Higgins was the only one faster at 19:09.6. Hraby beat his 2021 time here by 32 seconds.
After Cody Ruetz of Rhinelander claimed third place in 19:30.1, Raider Josh Clark was fourth in 19:42, while Logan Gubser and Nick Steliga were sixth and seventh in 21:11.8 and 21:15.6. Steliga set his best Antigo time, 31 seconds ahead of his 2020 race on the course.
The biggest improvement came from senior Lucas Borman. In his fourth career race on the course, he placed 13th in 22:59.5, beating his time from last year by just over three minutes.
Sophomore Brandon Curtis was a solid 17th at 24:49.7, freshman Evan Pagel was 20th in 25:04.3, freshman Cullen Jones was 26th in 26:29.6 and senior Ervin Ulrich was 27th at 26:45.
Medford’s teams will get a good test Saturday at the huge Smiley Invitational hosted by Wausau East. The first of several morning races is set for 8:30 a.m. The Raiders will go to another huge meet, the University of Minnesota’s Griak Invitational, on Friday, Sept. 23.
