On Thursday, September 14, 2023, the Spartans traveled to Oacoma to run in the Chamberlain Cross Country Invite. It was a day that I’d describe as a runner’s delight, overcast sky, a little north breeze, and cooler temperatures. The kids ran well amongst a large number of competitors in each division.
We didn’t have any runners in the junior varsity division. We were missing Teagan Scheel, as he had an opportunity to go and be a caddy at the Sanford International as a Beef Ambassador.
Four girls stepped into box 11 at the line for the varsity run. There were sixty runners in this race. The girls got out in good position and stayed mid pack throughout. Alexis Roesler paced the Spartans and finished 30th with her time of 23:37. Abby Kolousek ran 24:44 for 42nd. Making her varsity debut was Masynn Mebius, who finished right behind Abby in 24:49 for 43rd place. Ella Kolousek battled through side pains and finished in 27:45 for 57th place. As a team, the girls finished 10th out of 13 teams, that schools had complete teams. Cross-country is a sport of individuals and in Class B we need three runners for a team, with runners four and five being the tiebreakers.
As the boys stepped into box 11 for the varsity race, we entered two runners, Ranick Fjerstad and Tucker Thompson, for his first varsity race. There were 97 runners in this race. For the Spartans, Ranick led, and Tucker kept pace and ran well for his first ever 5K. Ranick’s time was 21:44 to cross the line in 72nd and Tucker’s time was 21:58 to cross the finish the race in 81st.
Lily Roesler ran in the Junior high division, and she ran her first 3K in this race. Lily’s first race in Springs was a 2K. Lily competed against 65 runners, and she ran a great race, finishing in 15:48 for 49th place.
We made a change to our schedule, and we will be traveling to Fish Lake in Plankinton on Wednesday, September 20. Races will start at 2 p.m. and run on a rolling schedule, girls varsity, boys’ varsity, JV girls, JV boys, and MS. They may combine the JV/MS races at their discretion.