Aaron Rodgers produces statistics galore: Attempts, Completions, Percentage of Completions, Total Passing Yards, Average Passing Yards per Game, Touchdowns and the number of times he’s seen with Olivia Munn.  One Green Bay Packer game generates reams of numbers, all in an attempt to determine the quality of the team and of each individual player.  A sport exists, however, that produces just a few digits and those numerals tell you everything you need to know.  Look at the results from the New Glarus-Monticello Cross Country team after Saturday’s race at Spring Green.

The top rated boys teams in our sectional lined-up next to our NGM’ers: Defending state champion Darlington, state runner-up Boscobel, highly ranked Albany, the upstart Wisconsin Heights and sixteen other teams.  Crossing the finish line in order of 1-2-3: Payton Heinberg-D (16:54), Lucas Caminiti-WH (17:06) and Kyle Fredrickson-NGM (17:11).  A quick glance down the course and we see Darlington’s next four runners ahead of the other teams and a minute later they’ve won the meet with 41 place points.  But, we’re not interested in Darlington.  We want Albany, Boscobel and Heights.  Christian Arnett-NGM (17:56) finishes ahead of their number two runners, Adam Nelson-NGM (18:30) bests their number three runners, Andrew Newberry-NGM (19:39) finishes behind Albany’s and Height’s “number fours” but ahead of the Heights guy.  We need our fifth person to sprint through the chute soon!  Albany crosses, Heights crosses, Boscobel crosses and we see Cade Beutler (20:25), Garrett Grossen (20:49), Colin McNulty (20:56) with 400 meters to go.  The finish line remains a busy place.  Runners pass at the rate of an athlete every two seconds.  Cade nails down our fifth spot and NGM earns 162 points.  What’s the total? What’s the total?  Albany scores 117 place points, Wisconsin Heights 127, New Glarus-Monticello 162, Boscobel 206 and our neighbor Belleville 311.  We’ve finished ahead of last year’s state runner-up but behind the Comets and Vanguards.  We need to do one thing: our team must drop 101 seconds in the next five weeks.  That’s one telling statistic.

Twenty-one varsity girls small school teams line-up under clearing skies.  Sophomore Gabbie Sawyer (21:08) starts fast, runs with the front dozen and finishes 11th overall.  Gabbie drops 37 seconds from last week and makes it into the awards ceremony.  Gabby Whisler (23:16) sheds 44 seconds and scores 41 place points out of a field of 147 runners.  Molly Molencamp (23:46) feels good about her race by finishing third on the team and loosing 64 seconds, Kelly Fredrickson (25:10) knocks off 37 seconds, Walela Three-Sticks (26:26) releases 17 seconds, Rebecca Barr (26:28) leaves behind 26 seconds and Jenna Molencamp (26:44) ends with a solid run.  The girls place 11th of the 21 schools.

For the second week in a row, Brooke Dreyfus (29:33) becomes our lone JV representative for the girls team and happily breaks the 30-minute barrier for the first time in her life.

One never knows who will lead the junior varsity team.  Kellan Zweifel (21:26) places first on the JV team and posts a 1 minute 45 second improvement from last week.  The rest of the team seems spread out randomly, with Johnathan Truttman (22:04), Ryan Austin (22:07), Simon Blohowiak (23:23), Lucas Fink (23:29), Cole Runde (23:40), Levi Dearth (23:49) earning the team 21st of the 41 schools.

Middle school produces an exciting race with 211 in the boys.  Conor McCoy (8:47) takes the early lead but finds a Fennimore competitor moves ahead at mile one.  Staying on the Fenni’s shoulder until the last moment, Conor unleashes a strong sprint to win the 1.5-mile contest.  Rudy Wicker (9:48) earns 9th, Dane Duerst (9:54) 12th, Beckett Malaise (10:17) 29th, Griffin Ness (10:18) 30th, Mason Thompson (10:28), Desi Delforge (10:31), Evan Guenther (10:38), Joe Quaglia (10:45), Peter Gustafson (10:49), Aiden Runkel (11:22), Silas Leuthner (11:33), Dylan Noll (12:21), Keegan Kemp (12:58) and Tristin Flanagan (13:24) provide back-up as the young guys finish second overall.

Dayna Karls (11:01) and Dylan Noll (12:21) finish out the morning by placing 33rd and 104th of 234 gals.

This starts a run of five races in fifteen days, including stops in Belleville on September 17th and September 20th.  One thing is certain, at the end of this demanding part of the schedule the middle school boys will still have too much energy!