Seidel races for UMD in DII Nationals

PART 2: COLLEGE FALL SPORTS REPORT

FORMER RAIDERS STILL RUNNING

Part two of our fall update on local college student-athletes focuses on cross country, a sport four former Medford Raiders competed in this season.

An improved season individually and for the team ended with 2020 Medford graduate Franny Seidel competing in the NCAA Division II National Championships with the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs.

Under first-year head coach Brette Jensen, the Bulldogs placed fourth in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference and sixth at the NCAA Division II Central Region Championship in Joplin, Mo. The latter resulted in the Bulldogs gaining an at-large berth to the national meet, which was held Friday, Dec. 2 in Seattle and hosted by Seattle Pacific University.

Seidel, now in her third season with the program, emerged as one of the squads scoring runners this season and had her best race at the Region Championship, hosted by Missouri Southern State University on Nov. 19.

Seidel posted a personal-best 6K time of 21:49.4, which put her in 43rd place out of 229 finishers. She was fourth among the Bulldogs’ seven entrants. They were led by Cailee Peterson, who was eighth overall in 20:34.3.

A top-three team finish was needed to automatically qualify for the national meet. UMD came in sixth with a team score of 154, trailing Augustana Pittsburg state (120), Minnesota State-Mankato (127), Nebraska Kearney (146) and Winona State (151). Northwest Missouri was seventh, one point behind the Bulldogs.

The at-large bids were announced two days after the meet. The Bulldogs were 26th a year ago at the national meet.

This time, Seidel was part of the team’s national contingent and was the team’s fifth finisher on the Chambers Creek Regional Park course with a time of 23:17.4. She was 201st out of 262 finishers. Peterson, a sixth-year transfer from South Dakota State and Mayville, N.D.

native, again led UMD with a 62nd-place finish in 21:40.3. Junior Maddie Verkerke, who hails from White Bear Lake, Minn., was 86th in 21:56.6.

UMD placed 20th in the final team standings with 512 points, their highest finish since 2017, when they were 15th. Adams State won the national championship with 75 points, comfortably beating Grand Valley State (126), the Colorado School of Mines (164), University of Colorado- Colorado Springs (184) and Augustana (218).

Stephanie Cotter of Adams State was the individual champion with a time of 19:45.2, well ahead of Winona State’s Lindsay Cunningham (20:27.2).

UMD placed fourth at the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference championships held Saturday, Nov. 5 and hosted by Wayne State in Nebraska. The Bulldogs totaled 78 points to trail Augustana (56), Minnesota State (68) and Winona State (73). UMD was well ahead of the fifth-place team, the University of Mary (107).

Seidel was 33rd out of 141 runners in that race with a time of 23:39.39 and again was the team’s fourth finisher.

In other regular-season highlights, Seidel stepped up when the team was short-handed in the Oct. 19 Waxlax Invitational hosted by St. Cloud State and placed 12th overall and second on the team with what was then a personal-best time of 22:32.6. The Bulldogs scored 74 points to place third at the seven-team meet behind Minnesota State (28) and Winona State (33). Seidel was one spot behind teammate Savannah Schley of Loyal (22:31.7).

She finished 54th in the 20-team Lewis Crossover in Romeoville, Ill. on Oct. 8 with a time of 23:10.35, two spots behind Schley (23:06.99). The team was second with 104 points, trailing only Colorado Christian (77).

UMD won the women’s Maroon Division in the Sept. 23 Roy Griak Invitational hosted by the University of Minnesota. The Bulldogs had 65 team points to beat Winona State by 23 and UW-La Crosse by 49. Seidel was the team’s seventh finisher that afternoon in 23:56.7. She was the team’s sixth finisher in the seasonopening 5K UMD Bulldog Open on Sept. 9, posting a time of 19:08.8. The Bulldogs were one point away from a perfect score in that meet, totaling 16 points to easily outscore runner-up UW-Superior (56).

Medford 2021 graduate Alicia Kawa finished her second cross country season with the UW-Green Bay Phoenix by placing 173rd out of 219 finishers in the women’s race of the NCAA Division I Great Lakes Regional.

The meet was hosted by Indiana State University and held at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, Ind. on Friday, Nov. 11.

Kawa finished the 6K race in 23:27 and was the third member of the Phoenix to cross the finish line. Kelsey Radobicky, a junior from Waterford, was 73rd in 21:49.2 and Grace Beyer, a freshman from Shawano, was 169th in 23:23.3.

Green Bay was 28th in the team standings to end a season that included six meets. Notre Dame (34) and Ohio State (111) were the top regional finishers.

Kawa was the team’s second finisher in the Horizon League Championships, hosted Oct. 29 by Oakland University in Rochester, Minn. Kawa was 45th out of of 104 women’s runners in a time of 23:41.2, while Radobicky finished ninth in 22:17.8 to All-Horizon League second-team honors. The Phoenix placed eighth as a team with 187 points. Milwaukee won the conference title with 47 points, easily beating Oakland (86) and Youngstown State (87).

In the team’s first home meet at the new Shorewood Cross Country Course in Green Bay Sept. 9, the Green Bay women placed third out of four nearby teams with 89 points. That included Kawa’s 18th-place finish out of 45 runners with a time of 24:23. Winona State won the meet with 25 points, Milwaukee was next at 39 points and Marquette was fourth with 93.

In two large meets in terms of participation, the Phoenix placed 32nd in the Red Race at Bradley University’s Pink Classic in Peoria Ill. on Oct. 14, including Kawa’s 192nd-place time of 23:22, which stands as her best 6K time thus far and was good for second on the team, one place and 0.8 seconds ahead of Beyer. The team also placed 17th in the Gold Race of Notre Dame’s Joe Piane Invitational on Sept. 30. This was a 5K race. Kawa again was the team’s second finisher, placing 90th in 19:06.6, beating her time from a year ago in this meet by 24 seconds.

The season-opening Tom Barry Invitational, hosted by St. Norbert on Sept. 3, was actually the first-ever collegiate meet held on the Shorewood Course in Green Bay and featured two local athletes.

Green Bay won the 11-team meet with 39 points, easily outscoring Ripon (78) and St. Norbert (96) at the top of the standings and got a seventh-place finish out of 97 runners from Kawa, who posted a time of 20:05.31 in the 5K race. Radobicky won in 19:29.63.

St. Norbert sophomore Ellee Grunwald, also a 2021 Medford graduate and Kawa’s teammate with the Raiders, placed 16th for the Knights in that meet with a time of 21:22.91. Grunwald was her team’s second runner to cross the fin- ish line in the meet, not far behind 14thplace runner Faith Metzger (21:10.08), a junior from Kewaskum.

Grunwald and the Green Knights finished their season on Nov. 12 by placing 24th out of 35 teams in the NCAA Division III North Regional, hosted by St. Olaf College. The meet was won by Carleton with 41 points, just ahead of UW-La Crosse (64) and St. Olaf (66). Grunwald was 168th out of 230 finishers in the race, posting a time of 26:00 even. Fiona Smith of St. Benedict was the regional champion at 20:51.6.

Right before that on Oct. 29, in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference Championships hosted by Aurora University of Illinois, Grunwald set her personal-best collegiate 6K time of 25:43.6 while helping the Green Knights place third out of 11 teams with 86 points. St. Norbert trailed Aurora (59) and Edgewood (64), while finishing comfortably ahead of fourth-place Milwaukee School of Engineering (108). Grunwald placed a solid 27th out of 102 runners and was St. Norbert’s fifth scorer. Rachel Ehrhardt of Edgewood was the conference champion in 22:22.8. Grunwald moved up from a 33rd-place finish in 2021 in the conference meet.

Grunwald ran in two more meets for St. Norbert this fall. She ran in the University of Minnesota’s Roy Griak Invitational, along with former Medford teammate Franny Seidel of Minnesota-Duluth. In the Maroon race that afternoon, Grunwald placed 234th in 26:43 to help the Green Knights place 21st as a team. Duluth won the division and Seidel placed 43rd in 23:56.7. Grunwald had a fine early-season race at the Sept. 10 Aurora Invitational, placing 36th out of 251 runners in 26:11.7. The team was sixth out of 15 teams that day.

2022 Medford graduate Joe Sullivan had a solid first fall with UW-La Crosse’s men’s team.

Sullivan ran in six races, four of which were at the standard men’s NCAA distance of 8,000 meters, a big bump up from the high school distance of 5,000.

His best time was 26:29.1, which he achieved while finishing 76th in the team’s Jim Drews Invitational on Oct. 15. The Eagles won that 28-team meet by seven points, 42-49 over Iowa Central Community College.

In the open race at Olivet College (Mich.) National Preview Meet on Oct. 1, Sullivan was 10th out of 123 runners in 26:41.6. He was the sixth Eagle finisher. Ishaan Patel of North Central (Ill.) won the race in 26:04.8. UW-L finished third in the varsity race and Eagle Ethan Gregg won it in 24:12.3.

Gregg also won the Men’s Maroon Race at Minnesota’s Griak Invite in 25:01.4, where UW-L was second out of 27 teams with 77 points, only trailing Michigan Tech (62). Sullivan was 96th out of 423 finishers in 27:16.7.

Sullivan was 17th out 68 runners in his first 8K, the Ken Weidt Invitational, hosted by Concordia College in Mequon on Sept. 10. He cracked the 27-minute barrier at 26:58.8. The Eagles fell second to UW-Whitewater 21-37 in that meet.

UW-L won the WIAC championship, placed second at the NCAA Division III North Regional at St. Olaf and finished eighth in the NCAA Division III national meet in Lansing, Mich. In a 5K dual meet with Luther College of Iowa on Oct. 21, Sullivan placed second out of 36 runners in 16:01.8. He was well ahead of teammate Austin True (16:08.3) for the second spot. Tyler Kisting, an unattached athlete, won in 15:48.4. UW-L won the meet with a perfect score of 15.

Sullivan opened the year with a 6.4K time of 21:05.46 in UW-L’s Intrasquad/ Alumni meet on Sept. 3, good for 13th place.