Runner achieve faster times at Smiley Invitational

Saturday dawned on another warm fall day in central Wisconsin, with 58 high school cross country teams descending on the grounds of Wausau East High School for the annual Smiley Invitational. Competing in a much bigger field of athletes than they were used to, local runners from Spencer, Greenwood and Loyal were unable to snag a top 10 spot; however, the increased competition seemingly spurred the runners on to greater speeds, with most seeing improvement in their times from the week before. Loyal Greenwood’s (LG) Summer Smith shaved more than 10 seconds off her previous time (22 minutes), with a time of 21:48.7. This put her in 36th place of out 163 runners in the Division 2 girls race. Noelle Teschner had a time of 27:41.8, which was nearly identical to her time the week before. For the LG boys, Andrew Lavengood took 46th out of the 178 boys in the Division 2 race, with a time of 18:36.8, about 36 seconds faster than his last time. Lincoln Smith placed 55th at 23:34.2, about 26 seconds quicker than he ran the previous week. Mason Kohnert had a time of 26:55.1, good for 66th place. He was within 3 seconds of his previous time.

Spencer results On the girls’ side, Tahneya Anderson crossed the finish line first, taking 144th place with a time of 28:31.5. This was more than 20 seconds faster than her previous time. Kaydence Plaskey finished 152nd with a time of 29:15.3. She did not participate in the previous meet. Ariana Krueger clocked in at 29:27, good for 153rd. She beat her old time by 26 seconds. Savannah Wilke took 161st with a time of 31:36.9.

On the boys’ side, Camdyn Vogel was the fastest for Spencer, taking 151st with a time of 21:44.8, a second faster than the week before. Henry Glamm crossed the finish line at 24:08.2, being the 170th runner to do so. That was more than 3.5 minutes faster than his previous time. Oscar Chan took 178th place at 34:09.8.

Neither LG nor Spencer had enough runners compete to register a team score.

NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD/TRIBUNE PHONOGRAPH

NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD/ TRIBUNE PHONOGRAPH