Colby takes second, co-op third in Cloverbelt

For the second straight season, the Colby girls cross country team took second and the Colby-Abby boys team took third at the Cloverbelt conference meet, which was held this past Saturday. Held this year at Lake Wissota Golf Course in Chippewa Falls, the meet featured athletes from the 14 member schools.

The Hornet girls team finished with 62 points to finish as the runner up to Bloomer, which ended the day with 31 points. Colby just edged out the Eau Claire Regis team that had beaten them at the conference meet the year prior, with the Ramblers taking the third spot with 70 points. Bloomer’s Ciara Hartman took first place, posting a time of 18:17.1.

Meanwhile, the co-op boys team finished with 114 points to place behind Bloomer (31) and McDonnel (65), the two teams that had taken the top spots at last season’s conference meet. Columbus Catholic’s Isaac Scheer was the conference champion in the boys race, finishing in 16:23.2 to take the crown.

Seniors Casey Reynolds and Max Adams led their respective teams on Saturday, both recording new personal bests in their final conference meet. Reynolds cut 45 seconds from her previous personal best, putting up a time of 20:28.9 and earning herself third place overall in the girls competition. Meanwhile, Adams took three seconds off of the time he had put up at the Weyauwega-Fremont meet last season to come up with his first PR of 2023. He finished in seventh place.

“I was really excited to see Casey get third,” head coach Bryon Graun said. “The work she’s put in over the course of the summer and the season has been fun to watch. And Max has been being Max all year, running right where we expected him.”

Another Colby-Abby senior, Jack Schindler, also recorded a new PR on Saturday. Schindler worked his way under the 18-minute mark for the first time of his career, finishing with a time of 17:56.5. The performance was nine seconds faster than his time in Weyauwega the week prior and earned him 12th place overall.

“Jack has really stepped up and made improvements,” Graun said. “He’s been trying to get [Abbotsford head coach Dillon] Novak’s PR and was four seconds short of it on Saturday, so its fun to see him shoot for that.”

Gavin Reis and Pearl Feiten picked up new personal bests of their own. Reis finished as the boys’ third runner, taking over nearly half a minute from his previous fastest time and coming in 31st overall after completing the course in 19:33.1. Feiten shaved off 46 seconds from her old PR, posting a time of 22:24.6 to come in 21st place as the Hornets fourth runner.

MaKenna Herrmann and Braylon Schoelzel both had their best times of 2023. Herrmann placed ninth after her fastest race of the season, finishing with a time of 21:07.7. Schoelzel finished alongside teammate Carter Roth, the pair recording times of 20:21.7 and 20:21.3 respectively. Roth took 38th and Schoelzel placed 39th.

Reagan Schraufnagel continued to build on her strong finish to the 2023 regular season by claiming 13th place at the conference meet. Her time of 21:49.6 was only three seconds off the pace she set at Weyauwega. Ali Adams and Veronica Mateer finished 24th and 25th, recording times of 22:56.3 and 22:57.8 and Annamarie Schmitt rounded out the team by placing 27th with a time of 23:10.6.

Jacob Raatz finished fourth for the co-op boys, coming in 35th after posting a time of 20:10.1 and Preston Belanger was the final varsity runner for the Colby-Abby squad, placing 67th with a time of 22:36.8.

“I thought we had a really good day,” Graun said of the teams’ performances. “We had some high goals for allconference runners and we came close to meeting them.”

Next up for the cross country teams will be the D2 and D3 sectional meets that will be held in Colby this Saturday, Oct. 21. The Colby girls will be aiming for their fourth straight appearance as a team at the state meet and there will be several individuals from both teams aiming to possibly reach the final meet of the season as individuals as well. The D3 meet is set to begin at 10:30 a.m. and the D2 meet is to start at 2:45 p.m.