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The Dodgeville-Mineral Point girls cross country team met up with several Division 2 school they will have to compete with at the sectional level in an attempt to get to state this fall when they took part in the River Valley Blackhawk Invitational Large School Division Saturday.
They took care of every one except one of those teams as McFarland finished third with 98 points while Dodge-Point was fourth at 129.
Division 1 teams Sun Prairie and Middleton took the top two spots with 56 and 71 points.
Rounding out the team scores were: Freedom 161, DeForest 208, Holmen 213, Mount Horeb 233, Madison La Follette 245, Mauston 263, Portage 268, Sauk Prairie 271, Wisconsin Dells 311, River Valley 365, Richland Center/Ithaca 374.
Some of the teams ran the new 5000 meter distance for the first time. One was Dodge-Point's Hannah Owens. She toured the distance in 18:28 to finish second overall to Sun Prairie's Katie Heitpas (18:22).
The other Dodge-Point finishes were: Brittany Rhyner 11th in 20:11, McKenzie Hall 28th in 20:58, Mikaela Bakker 32nd in 21:16, Kennedy Stumpf 56th in 22:20 and Emily Philipps 80th in 23:39.
Dodge-Point coach Denny McGraw commented about the girls' race saying, "The Varsity Girls finished 4th out of 15 teams. Our girls gave a good effort to finish so well, with a couple senior girls gone to take the ACT test."
"Hannah Owens was the top Dodge-Point runner, finishing 2nd. She and Katie Hietpas from Sun Prairie were the only girls running in the low 18 minutes...outpacing all the competition by almost a minute. Hannah is looking very strong as she continues to run elite times. Brittany Rhyner had a strong finish, pacing well throughout the race and placed 11th. McKenzie Hall is running very well and had a great race. Mikaela Bakker had a very good race and is starting to come on. Kennedy Stumpf and Emily Philipps rounded out the varsity runners with solid performances."
Dodge-Point claimed third in the JV race with 89 points behind Middleton's perfect 15 and Sun Prairie's 77.
Then came McFarland 136, Mauston 141, Darlington 212, Reedsburg 264, Sauk Prairie 265, Madison La Follette 285, DeForest 287, Boscobel 317, Mount Horeb 323, Freedom 327, Wisconsin Heights/Barneveld 328, Portage 390, New Glarus/Monticello 454, Gibraltar 480.
Scoring/finishes for Dodge-Point were: Drew Sandstrom 14th in 22:51, Mariah Zoet 15th in 22:58, Alexis Bauer 16th in 22:59, Claire Baldus 21st in 23:16 and Abby Thompson 23rd in 23:21.
The rest of their finishes werE: Brittany Walczak 32nd 23:58, Jorie Driscoll 42nd 24:21, Alyssa Sullivan 59th 24:20, Shianne Carroll 70th 24:37, Hannah Jones 83rd 25:01, Jackie Frank 125th 26:06, Ashley Chitwood 152nd 26:55, Claire Binsfeld 153rd 26:55, Diana Dochnahl 232nd 36:26.
The JV Girls finished 3rd out of 17 teams, only being bested by 2 very good Division I schools," McGraw pointed out.
"The girls are now running 5000 meters, so the runners are doing well as they adjust to the new race distance. We had 3 JV girls run under 23 minutes - Drew Sandstrom, Mariah Zoet and Alexis Bauer."
Boys finish 9th
Madison La Follette sophomore Finn Gessner ran a 15:57 to top Freedom senior (16:12) in the boys' large school race.
LaFollette won the race with 41 points to Sun Prairie's 81 with Middleton at 94.
Dubuque Senior scored 114 with Mauston at 149, McFarland at 154, Freedom with 167 and DeForest at 202.
Then came Dodgeville-Mineral Point at 214 followed by Holmen 268, Portage 329, Sauk Prairie 353, River Valley 393, Viroqua 402, Wisconsin Dells 408, Reedsburg 478, Mount Horeb 487, Edgerton 500, Southwestern/Cuba City 546.
Dodge-Point's Tyler Wunnicke took 22nd in 17:11 wih Juan Navarro finishing 27th in 17:28.
The rest of their scoring came from: Brandon Forseth 46th in 18:09, Luke Davis 59th in 18:30 and Tanner Cullen 60th in 18:31.
Their varsity was rounded out by Jordan May 91st in 19:28 and Isaac Grunow 96th in 19:44.
"The Varsity Boys placed 9th out of 19 teams in the large school division. Tyler Wunnicke was the top Dodge-Point boys' runner placing 22nd, with a strong showing among tough competition," McGraw said.
"Juan Navarro continues to be an outstanding freshmen, showing great progress with each race. Brandon Forseth is improving each race and is a great asset to the team. Sophomores Luke Davis and Tanner Cullen ran the race side by side and showed nice improvement from last week, they will continue to improve throughout the season. Freshmen Jordan May and Isaac Grunow rounded out the varsity squad with solid performances.
"We have a young squad that is showing very good potential early in the season."
The Dodge-Point junior varsity team also took ninth, scoring 278 points.
Dubuque Senior won at 32, followed by Sun Prairie 55, La Follette 82, Middleton 99, McFarland 113, Freedom 205, DeForest 231 and Holmen 248 before Dodge-Point.
Then came Boscobel 287, Portage 374, Darlington 387, Sauk Prairie 399, Mauston 419, Prairie du Chien 423, Mount Horeb 434, New Glarus/Monticello 436, Brookwood 497, Gibraltar 555 and Iowa-Grant/Highland 562.
Dodge-Point results were: Stewart Thompson 40th 19;42, Ty Driscoll 50th 20:04, Nathan Eisenzimmer 57th 20:24, John Phelan 61st 20:37, Noah Lawinger 70th 21:03, Conner Trocke 88th 21:38, Patrick Husom 98th 22:01.
"The JV Boys had a very respectable 9th place finish, among 20 teams," McGraw said.
"There were 300 runners jammed into the starting lanes. Stewart Thompson was the top JV boy breaking the 20 minute mark."
Iowa-Grant/Highland results
In the Small School varsity, Darlington topped Albany 46-77 with I-G/Highland seventh at 181.
Boscobel's Dakota Kauffman won in 16:11 over Darlington's Jaden Komprood's 16:23.
Iowa-Grant/Highland was led by Jordan Jenks taking 18th in 17:57 with Ethan McCracken 21st in 18:21, Creighton Biddick 43rd in 19:20, William McLeer 45th in 19:22, Ben Connolly 54th in 19:46, Micah Bomkamp 65th in 20:08 and Kyle Faull 79th in 21:38.
Iowa-Grant/Highland JV finishes were: Jacon Soman 100th 22:03, Easton Dobson 106th 22:11, Wyatt Reeves 107th 22:11, Paul Connolly 124th 23:52, Ben Amend 125th 24:13, Brandon Bickford 134th 28:50.
The I-G/H girls didn't field a complete team in the Small School Division that was won by Boscobel at 76 with Wisconsin Heights/Barn-eveld and Darlington knotting up with 100 points - the nod going to WH/B on the strength of their sixth runner's finish.
I-G/H results were: Angela Melby 39th in 23:15, Julia Cockroft 83rd in 25:49, Makayla Dicken 90th in 26:08 and Caitlyn Fowell 92nd in 26:44.
Boscobel's Keely Foley won in 19:37 with Belleville's Noelle Marie next at 19:47.