MEDFORD CROSS COUNTRY - Raider girls, Kahn take second in season’s second meet

MEDFORD CROSS COUNTRY

While the Timm’s Hill Invitational is a tough way to start the cross country season, the Mosinee Invitational has always served a nice rebound meet for the Medford Raiders and Tuesday’s meet was no different.

Times improved significantly across the board on the much flatter course at Wausau’s Nine Mile Recreation Area as the Medford girls took second for the second straight meet and the boys were seventh of 13 teams represented at the meet.

“The Mosinee Invitational did not disappoint,” head coach Jake Rhyner said.

The girls totaled 70 points to fall just behind Great Northern Conference rival Rhinelander (63) in the team standings and six points ahead of third-place Stratford. Lakeland tied Stratford with 76 points but lost the sixth-runner tiebreaker.

Medford’s Lindsay Kahn continued to take hold of the team’s number-one position, earning second place in the field of 95 finishers. She finished in 19:48, 17 seconds behind champion Addison May of Crandon and three seconds ahead of Northland Lutheran’s Alexa Leonard. Antigo’s Lillian L’Esperance was fourth in 20:08.

“Lindsay ran a smart race, tucking into a small group at the front only to lose contact with eventual winner from Crandon in the last mile,” Rhyner said.

Morgan Liske finished 11th in 21:25. She was three seconds out of the top 10, coming in just behind Rhinelander’s Macy Myers. Mallory Richter was 14th in 21:57. Liske’s time was 3:01 better than Thursday’s time at Timm’s Hill.

Ella Dassow was Medford’s fourth runner, taking 22nd place in 23:05 and the team’s biggest jumper was freshman Greta Seidel, who was the fifth scorer while taking 33rd in 24:03. She improved her time by more than five minutes. Willow Dassow was 35th in 24:12.

Carly Koski was 37th in 24:19, coming in about 3:41 faster than Thursday, while Esme Anderson was 39th in 24:21, cutting 4:09 off her Thursday time. Kayla Daniels was 46th in 25:27. Rounding out the Raiders’ crew, Lexus Hraby was 68th at 28:16, Lauren Stark (28:52) and Josey Krug (28:55) were 73rd and 74th and Isabella Leischer was 90th at 34:04, cutting 4:21 off her time.

Wausau East (106), Northland Pines (164), Edgar (181), Antigo (197) and Mosinee (201) rounded out the team scoring while Adams-Friendship, Crandon, Northland Lutheran and Spencer did not field full teams.

In the boys race, senior Brandon Curtis earned his second 10th-place finish in as many meets. Curtis finished in 18:02 and beat Edgar’s Dillan Sondelski by a second and Northland Pines’ Kaemyn Heritage by two seconds for the 10th spot.

Corbyn Radlinger took 26th in 19:16.

“Brandon had great early positioning and closed with a sprint finish to secure an individual medal,” Rhyner said. “Freshman Corbyn Radlinger continues strong start as the top freshman and number two for the team two weeks in a row.”

Peyton Ried was 36th out of 110 finishers with his time of 19:52, Ace Arndt jumped to Medford’s fourth position while taking 43rd in 20:11 and Will Daniels got the fifth scoring spot while placing 47th at 20:29. Evan Pagel came in at 20:43 to place 50th.

As a team, Medford scored 156 points to beat Edgar (176) and Mosinee (241). Lakeland won the meet with 49 points, 15 fewer than Stratford. Rhinelander was third with 75 points, followed by Northland Pines (119), Wausau East (127) and Crandon (140).

Adams-Friendship, Antigo, Northland Lutheran and Spencer were the incomplete squads.

Crandon’s Taylor Karcz was the boys winner in 16:07. Stratford’s Cree DeFoe (16:25), Lakeland’s Ashton Bremer (16:38) and Greyson Gremban of Rhinelander (16:57) also had sub 17-minute times.

Rounding out Medford’s lineup were Jordan Lavin, 54th in 20:55; Angus Hamland, 72nd in 22:01; Nevyn Gripentrog, 77th in 22:55; Isiah Wallace-Szydel, 78th in 22:56; Corbyn Fuchs, 92nd in 24:35; Manny Espinoza, 101st in 27:13, and Isaac Damm, 109th in 30:18.

Wallace-Szydel had the team’s biggest time drop, going from 31:00.9 at Timm’s Hill to 22:56.

The Raiders will be at the Marshfield Invitational Tuesday, Sept. 10 at Wildwood Park and then will head to Colby on Sept. 14.

Brandon Curtis