On Wednesday, September 6, 2023, Wessington Springs Country Club was the host site for the 281 Conference Cross-Country Meet. Who would have thought that after four days of temperatures hitting over 100 degrees that we’d have a day of 55 degrees, wind, and fog in between the heat and race day. With the wind change, it brought back the smoke from the Canadian wildfires, making the day of the meet a little less desirable, but more tolerable than the heat.
The kids requested a different route out on the course, so I utilized the back two holes and made use of multiple tree lines, making the course a little more fan friendly and the runners seemed to approve. We ran girls varsity 5K, boys varsity 5K, a 4K combined girls and boys JV, and combined girls and boys Junior High for a 2K route.
The Spartans had a full team of three runners for the varsity girls race. Alexis Roesler ran well and finished 6th in the field of fourteen, with a time of 23:27.5. Abby Kolousek captured the 10th place medal running 24:04.6. Ella Kolousek ran 25:10.9. These girls were 3rd in team standings. Winning the girls varsity race was Autumn Fallis from Highmore-Harrold running in 20:36.6. The Vikings of JVC were the team champions for girls’ varsity with 9 total team points.
The boys were next to the starting line. Running in that race was Ranick Fjerstad. He ran 21:12.9 and finished 14th of the 20 runners.
The Junior Varsity race we ran the boys and girls together. Tucker Thompson ran well, finishing 6th with his time of 16:22.7 throughout the 4K race. Teagan Scheel finished in 20:24.2 for 12th place amongst the field. Masynn Mebius was running strong for the girls and led most of the race. She finished in 18:01.6 and in 2nd place in the 4K race.
Making her crosscountry debut was 7th grader, Lily Roesler. She ran 11:13.8 across the 2K course and took home the 6th place ribbon.
Our next meet will be the Chamberlain Invitational meet held at the golf course in Oacoma on Thursday, September 14.