Expecations remain high with deep girls team, solid boys core
MEDFORD CROSS COUNTRY PREVIEW
The Medford Raiders have consistently found cross country success since emerging as team contenders in Great Northern Conference and post-season competition about a half-dozen years ago.
There are no signs of slowing down in 2022. Winners of five straight GNC titles and three of its past four sectional meets, the girls program might have its deepest team yet with 14 runners out and most of them being above your standard varsity caliber.
The boys, while losing one of the state’s best runners in 2022 graduate Joey Sullivan, are feeling confident in their chances to win that team’s first GNC title since 2018 and make some noise at the sectional as well.
After seven years as Kevin Wellman’s assistant, Sherry Meyer took over the head coaching position from Wellman this summer. She and new assistant Steven Reynolds are well aware they are taking over the program that is in a great spot, but they and their runners know this is not the time to rest on past laurels.
“Obviously with a new coaching staff, I feel a little bit of that weight on my shoulders,” Meyer said Monday of maintaining the program’s success. “The thing is you can’t worry about things like that. If you put the time in, the work in and the puzzle pieces are going to fall together and make a beautiful piece of art. That’s how it works.”
“Our first week was solid,” senior Josh Clark said. “I thought we did pretty good. The team’s coming together nicely.”
The 2022 journey starts today, Thursday, when Medford competes in Prentice-Rib Lake’s annual Timm’s Hill Invitational. The middle school race is set for 4 p.m., followed by the boys race at 4:30 p.m. and the girls race at 5 p.m. The Raiders will be at the Mosinee Invitational at 9-Mile Recreation Area on Tuesday.
The Timm’s Hill course is a challenging one to start a season, but it’s one the team always looks forward to.
“It’s fun. It’s a good course and it’s pretty,” senior Bryn Fronk said.
“It will be a good first meet. It always is,” junior Meredith Richter said.
The girls come off a 2021 season where they won every meet but the University of Minnesota’s Griak Invitational until earning an eighth-place finish at the WIAA Division 2 state championships.
Four of the team’s state representatives are back for certain, while another’s return in uncertain. Junior Meredith Richter was 40th out of 151 state finishers. Brooke Rudolph was 76th at state and seventh in the GNC championships at Lakeland, good for first-team honors. She’s run in two state meets for Medford. Sophomore Ella Dassow was 109th at state and got honorable mention in the GNC with a 17th-place finish and junior Ella Daniels was 121st at state and 13th in the GNC, good for second-team honors.
Richter was unable to run in the GNC meet due to a quarantine but certainly would have been a contender.
The wild card is Fronk, who is working her way back from a torn ACL suffered during the basketball season in January. Fronk has run in two state meets for Medford, including last year’s 88th-place finish and she was ninth in the GNC. She is doing some running and working out with the team.
“Bryn wants to run,” Meyer said. “There’s some uncertainty there. Mentally she’s really trying to train herself to get back in it and physically. I think she really wants it and I think she’s going to give it a shot.”
“I’m working out, running here and there,” Fronk said. “It’s fun. I still like being part of the team. That’s still the best thing.”
Juniors Natasha Butt and Kylie Potvin also return. Then there’s an infusion of more talent that adds to the depth.
The team leaders said freshman Lindsay Kahn is definitely a newcomer to watch. She is the younger sister of 2022 graduate Jennifer Kahn, who was 46th at state and second in the GNC meet last fall. Senior foreign exchange student Bjorg Risa has made a strong early impression. Freshmen Morgan Liske and Mallory Richter, Meredith’s younger sister, are also keeping pace and the team got a junior transfer, Lillie Gleichauf, who also brings varsity experience to the team. Sophomore newcomer Riley Clark and freshman Kaelynn Balciar round out the roster.
“It will be good,” Meredith Richter said. “There will be lots of competition.”
“I think the varsity team could definitely change throughout the year for sure,” Daniels said.
“It’s going to be a battle all season with the top seven,” Reynolds said. “You never know in each race what’s going to happen.”
One thing the Raiders do know is they’ll have a full girls JV squad, something that hasn’t happened in quite some time and it should be a strong one at that. The girls said their goals are what one would expect them to be –– defend their grip on the conference and get back to state. “I think that’s everyone’s goal,” Daniels said. “That’d be nice. Ideal. It’s not like we don’t have the people.”
“I don’t know if we all performed at our best at state last year,” Meredith Richter said. “If we can get back and, as a team, if we can do well at state too, that’d be great.”
The boys finished second in the GNC last fall, 18 points behind Rhinelander, and finished sixth at the Colby-Abbotsford sectional. They sent Sullivan and Tanner Hraby to state. Sullivan, the two-time GNC Runner of the Year, finished eighth. Hraby, now a junior, finished 25th out of 151 runners at state in 17:12.3 and was fifth in last fall’s GNC race hosted by Lakeland.
“I definitely want to get back. That’s for sure,” Hraby said. “Now I know what times have to get to just from what I was at last year, try to beat them. That’s my goal. Try to get a sub-17 maybe.”
While not nearly as deep as the girls, the boys believe they have the quality necessary to make a run at conference and state accolades.
Clark and Lucas Borman are the returning seniors. Clark had a solid first year with the team in 2021, taking the last honorable mention spot in the GNC, and he could be one of the team’s most improved runners this fall.
“I know I’ve been putting in a lot of miles,” Clark said. “Ever since track season ended, I’ve been running at least once a day. It’s looking good for the year. Everybody else has been working super hard. I’m hoping to qualify for state. That’s the big goal and obviously we want the team to win conference and do well at sectionals.”
Borman also appears to be making a big jump and might be in line to be the team’s all-important fifth scorer.
“Lucas is really rolling along,” Meyer said. “He’s really pushing himself, he’s really grown and he wants to get with those guys and that’s where he is. He’s trying his hardest to be up there.”
“I want to try to get under 20 minutes for the start,” Borman said. “I want to get under that first and then try to get a state running time.”
Junior Logan Gubser is back after earning secondteam All-GNC honors with an 11th-place finish last fall. Junior Nick Steliga was 30th in the GNC meet and 68th at the sectional with a personal-best time of 19:56.1.
“I want to be top five in conference, maybe under 18 minutes,” Gubser said.
“My goal is to be top 10 in conference maybe top 15 and run 19 minutes and get below that,” Steliga said.
“The boys have some really good promise with that top four,” Reynolds said. “We just need that fifth guy.”
Additions for the boys this year include a first-year senior Ervin Ulrich, first-year sophomore Brandon Curtis and freshmen Cullen Jones and Evan Pagel.
Schedule highlights include the Smiley Invitational at Wausau East on Sept. 17 and the Griak Invite Sept. 23. The Raiders will host their annual invite on Sept. 29 and have just added the Black River Falls Invite on Oct. 4, which will give them a chance to scout the WIAA Division 2 sectional course at Skyline Golf Course, where Medford earned its first team state berth for the boys back in 2007. That race to determine this year’s state qualifiers is Oct. 22. Medford hosts the Great Northern Conference championships on Saturday, Oct. 15.
Sophomore Ella Dassow is one of six 2021 letter winners on Medford’s girls cross country team, which is gunning for a sixth straight GNC title and its fourth sectional title in five years.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
