NGM Doesn't Get Stung Today
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Tis a beautiful morning at the Spring Green Municipal Golf Course. The Girls Varsity race started ten minutes ago. As we stand at mile two, girls from nineteen other teams run past us. We only have eyes for New Glarus-Monticello and Belleville, since we know this contest will be close. With one mile to go a gal must make her move or forget trying to pass before the race is over. It’s now or never.
Our NGM’er Gabby Whistler (23:04) is spotted first, Molly Molencamp (24:02) and Walela Three-Sticks (24:19) follow. Three NGM’ers and no B’ville team member yet! So far, so good. Suddenly their Kalin, Heidi and Alexis scoot past and the race is up for grabs. Now we spot our Libbie Melvin (26:51) just ahead of their Giana. Then Emma comes by, leading our Dylan Noll (28:33) by over a minute. Here’s the problem: the runner’s overall place is the runner’s score so when Gabby finished 40th she gave our team 40 points. Their first runner is Kalin but if only a few others fill in the gap we don’t get much advantage. Maybe so many filled in between Emma in 90th before our Dylan that they made up for previous points. We’ll need to wait for results.
Our Emily Strieff (29:49), Samantha Burgess (30:24) and Brooke Dreyfus (32:27) come by but they will only count in the score if the first five gals tie with another team.
Varsity Boys don’t make mental scoring any easier. Conor McCoy (18:20), Adam Nelson (18:31), Rudy Wicker (19:24), Ty Ready (19:56), Joe Quaglia (20:10), Dane Duerst (20:28) and Garrett Grossen (20:32) finish mixed-up with hundreds of other small-school boys. As the last guy finishes the race, the computer spits out our average time of 19:17 and we notice that it beats Brookwood’s average of 19:21. Then it announces Brookwood in 4th with 159 points and New Glarus-Monticello 5th with 160. Oops, it probably came down to that one guy we couldn’t catch during the final sprint.
Simon Blohowiak (19:57) breaks the twenty-minute mark in the JV race and places himself on varsity for our Tuesday race. Robert Burt (21:00), Ryan Austin (21:08), Griffin Ness (21:48), Desi Delforge (22:37), Lucas Fink (23:10), Eric Zielinski (24:42), Tristin Flanagan (25:15) and Keegan Kemp (26:05) put the junior varsity in 15th place against 44 JV teams.
Hundreds of middle schooler’s show up for this race. For the girls MS team, Karley Michels (10:34), Dayna Karls (10:45), Tenley Faber (11:28), Whitney Disch (11:35), Annie Fuller (11:44), Annaka Boldenbuck (12:12) and Rachel Niceschwander (12:28) run fast on the 2400 meter course and hold their own against schools many times larger.
Evan Guenther (9:07), Tom Nelson (9:31), Beckett Malaise (9:45), Ian Schwartzlow (11:00), Aiden Runkle (11:02), Raymond Valentine (11:50), Carter Ness (12:30), Knolan Kemp (13:21) and Landon Schneeburg (13:40) also do well on this 2400m middle school race.
It’s early afternoon when they announce the positions of Girls Varsity Teams. We’re relieved to hear “New Glarus-Monticello in Twelfth” before announcing the Belleville girls in Fifteenth. We’ll see our Wildcat friends several more times before the conference meet. Can we hold them off or did we just make the “B’s” angrier by “bumping their nest”?
