For the Tomahawk Leader
RHINELANDER – Rhinelander and James Williams Middle School hosted eight area schools for their cross country invitational at Rhinelander High School on Thursday, Sept. 12.
The Tomahawk Middle School boys placed 5th overall, while the girls placed 2nd in a battle with three points separating 1st from 3rd.
Lakeland won overall for the boys, while Three Lakes won the team title for the girls.
Charlee Lund led the way for the Hatchets with her first top-five overall of the year, placing 5th in a time of 13:31 over the two-mile course, dropping more than 90 seconds from her time last year and setting a new personal best.
Hallie Pierce would have another strong race and earned a medal by placing 10th in a time of 14:26.
Rounding out the Hatchet scorers were Lexi Palmer (12th), Camryn Kraklow (15th), Kamron Ristau (16th), Aliyah Nelson (16th), Joa Reilly (17th), Joe Zastrow (21st), Abe Flohr (25th), Dawson Jones (27th), Levi Cerkas (28th), Autumn Pankow (34th), Max Childers (44th), and Zach Scott (45th). Also, contributing to the hatchet pack were Reagan Gorell (36th), Giordana Cammisuli (40th), Victoria Towle (42nd), Leigha Vassar (44th), Vallyn Ott (46th), Tripp Tabbert (47th), Lilly Meuer (49th), Lilli Marheine (50th), Alaina Stogbauer (55th), Savannah Reinke (57th), Lucy Nelson (58th) and Kortney Busterud (60th).
The coaching staff noted that 22 Hatchets had personal bests with some great weather and a course that was hard-pack and dry, which isn’t always the case there.
“The Lady Hatchets took to the course first, and it would be interesting to see how they would respond due to some illness that required rest and reduced reps on our workout Tuesday,” said coach Justin Lund. “They got out fast on that course and really challenged that top spot against a very strong Three Lakes team and also competing against Lakeland. You can’t count them out any time they are on the course. The athletes had an incredible scoring split of the top-five runners of one minute and 20 seconds on the ladies’ side, with some new key runners to the top five making an impact of Lexi Palmer and Camryn Kraklow. With Charlee Lund leading the charge going into the woods in 2nd place, it looked promising for a solid team result and they held on for a super strong 2nd place effort.”
“The boys have especially been hit hard with some illness and injury this past week, and that process started later than with the ladies, so you could tell they were not 100%, but they gave an incredible effort once again with this scoring pack of Kamron, Joe, Abe, Dawson, and Levi all finishing within a minute from 1st to 5th,” Lund continued. “If this group of boys can keep pushing each other on the course and at practice, the hope is that they will continue to move upward and compete for those top three spots and medalists honors individually. Things are looking great for this group especially as their teammates behind them gain more and more experience.”
This week’s action
Tomahawk will travel to Horace Mann Middle School in Wausau for the Junior Smiley Invitational on Thursday, Sept. 19. The meet gets underway at 4:30 p.m.