C/A sets sights on fourth straight state meet

The Colby girls cross country team and the Colby-Abby boys team have experienced their fair share of success over the past few seasons. The girls have qualified for the state meet as a team the past three years and last season, the coop boys sent one of their own as an individual to the WIAA’s final competition. In 2023, the two teams will be looking to continue that impressive trend, and with plenty of returning talent on both, there is reason to believe that the team could once again find themselves in Wisconsin Rapids come the end of October.

On one hand, the girls team will be short two members of the 2022 squad that went to state and took second place at both the Cloverbelt conference meet and their sectional. Willow Oehmichen, who finished second for the team and 62nd overall at the state meet, and Payton Roth, who placed fifth for the Hornets and 126th at state, graduated and played an important part to last year’s team success.

On the other hand, however, the Hornets will have five of the seven runners who competed in that final race last season back for another go.

Senior Casey Reynolds and junior MaKenna Herrmann look poised to lead a Colby squad still packed with potential, even with the previously mentioned departures.

“They’re going to probably be our top two runners,” head coach Bryon Graun said of the pair. “Both ran this summer and Casey has really put in some time and she seems ready to go.”

Herrmann finished first for the team at the state meet and 41st overall. The junior rapidly established a presence at the front of the pack last year, often finishing as the Hornets’ first or second runner. Her seven top-ten finishes were the most on the team and she will be looking to continue to be a top option for Colby this year.

By the end of the 2022 campaign, Reynolds had established herself as the Hornets’ third runner. Her times and placements improved with consistency as the season went along, culminating in a 108th place finish at state meet.

Senior Reagan Schraufnagel will also likely figure into the varsity squad’s success this season. Injuries kept her from running in the final postseason meet last year, but with times comparable to the rest of the state meet participants, she will certainly be in the mix for the top-five scorers for the team.

Juniors Pearl Feiten and Veronica Mateer and sophomore Annamarie Schmitt will also be returning from last year’s state team. Schmitt was the Colby-Abby

Hornets fourth place runner at the state meet, taking 121st, while Mateer rounded out the team’s results as the sixth and seventh runners respectively.

Kaitlyn Weiland, Jenelle Ertl, Ali Adams, Alexis Vanderhoof and Allie Robida were all mentioned as possibilities to fill in one or more of the top-seven spots this season.

The Hornets will be aiming to reclaim the Cloverbelt conference title after coming up just two points short last season. If they hope to return to state as a team, the girls will once again face a challenging sectional. While last year’s champs, Bonduel, were moved to another group, the third-place Stratford team, which will also be returning a good portion of their 2022 group, as well as a talented Assumption squad, which won its sectional last year, will serve as the most likely obstacles, though there are others that could rise up as the season progresses.

On the boys’ side of things, the co-op team’s top-seven varsity roster will likely look extremely similar to last year’s that took third at the Cloverbelt conference meet.

Senior Max Adams is positioned to be the co-op’s top runner once again, aiming to reach the state meet for a second straight year. Adams took great strides during the early portion of last year’s schedule, shaving off significant chunks from his times each meet and pushing himself into the upper echelon of runners at each meet. A sixth place finish at the D2 sectional meet in Black River Falls earned Adams a spot at his first state meet, where he went on to finish with a time of 17:37.9 and taking 60th overall.

“Max is going to lead the way,” Graun said. “He put in a ton of miles this summer and he has some lofty goals. He definitely has a chance to get back to state. The boys want to get to state as a team, and we will have to see if we are there yet, but I think it’s good for them to set those kinds of goals.”

Fellow seniors Jack Schindler, Carter Roth and Joseph Streveler, as well as junior Braylon Schoelzel and sophomores Matthew Sprotte, Jack Sheahan and Gavin Reis are part of a crowded field of competitors behind Adams. Schoelzel, Schindler and Sprotte often battled back and forth between the two through four spots on the team last season and Roth, Streveler, Sheahan and Reis routinely finished in the co-op’s top-seven last year and pushed into those scoring spots at times as well.

McDonell and Bloomer seemed poised to be the group’s toughest competition at the conference meet, with much of the 2022 first place Bloomer squad having the opportunity to return and Mc-Donell’s perennial excellence.

Both the boys’ and girls’ paths to state will cross through familiar territory, with Colby hosting both a Division 2 and Division 3 sectional this year.

Just from a talent evaluation standpoint, having so many returners from last year’s squad bodes well for the two teams. However, there are other, perhaps less tangible benefits as well. The group cohesion built over last year will largely carry over to this season as well, and it is this camaraderie that Graun sees as one of this particular team’s strengths.

“It’s a fun group,” he said. “They do a great job of supporting each other. Especially with this group, a lot of these kids are friends outside of cross country, so there’s not as many walls between them. To see the kids get together and have fun together, that’s why I coach. They’ve had a couple team breakfasts they organized on their own, so for that to already be starting is really cool.”

The teams had their first meet Loyal on Tuesday evening and will follow it up with their home meet in Colby on Saturday, Sept. 9. The start time for the meet is scheduled for 10:30 a.m.