C/A takes ninth, 15th at 66th Smiley meet
The 66th Annual Bill Smiley Invitational cross country meet was held on September 17 in Wausau. Hosted by Wausau East, this meet invited athletes from 60 different schools to compete, making it one of the largest competitions on most local teams schedules. The Colby girls team and the combined Colby/Abbotsford boys team made the journey Saturday morning to take on runners from 34 other D2 and D3 schools. The girls team finished ninth overall and the boys team came in 15th.
Senior Willow Oehmichen was able to run for the first time in two and a half weeks. Her last competition was on August 30 in Loyal, but despite the time off, the Hornets’ senior leader came back with her fastest race of the season. Oehmichen finished 24th overall with a time of 21:40.6.
Sophomore MaKenna Herrmann followed up her personal best at the Colby meet last week with a 35th place finish at the Smiley meet. Her time of 22:52.9 was the second fastest for the Hornets.
Colby’s next five runners stayed largely together, finishing within a minute of each other. Junior Casey Reynolds led the pack, finishing third for the Hornets and 61st overall with a time of 24:19.9. Senior Payton Roth came in two runners later, finishing in 24:28.9 and claiming 63rd place overall. Freshman Annamarie Schmitt and junior Reagan Schraufnagel finished 66th and 68th, with only six seconds separating their times of 24:38.5 and 24:44.9. Sophomore Pearl Feiten, who also missed last week’s Colby meet and thus had not run in a meet since August, finished seventh for the girls team with a time of 25:07.2.
The girls team ended the day with 214 points, which gave them ninth place among the D2 and D3 schools. Kiel took first with 74 points, followed by West Salem with 100 and Little Chute with 149. Junior Nora Gremban of Northland Pines paced the field for the second year in row, finishing in 18:46.5, a full minuteand- a-half faster than the next closest athlete.
The boys team, meanwhile, finished 15th with a final score of 353. Shorewood came out as the overall winner, their 71 points narrowly beating out West Salem’s 83 and Pacelli’s 99. Junior Charlie Vater of Iola-Scandinavia took first place in the boys’ meet with a time of 16:33.6.
Colby/Abbotsford’sMaxAdamsledthe team with another solid performance. He was one second shy of his personal best, a pace that he set in Colby last week, coming in with a time of 18:11.7. This earned him 24th place overall.
Coming in second for the co-op team was freshman Matthew Sprotte, who posted his second under 20-minute finish in a row by completing the course in 19:59.8. He came in 74th. Junior Jack Schindler placed 91st overall with a time of 20:35.8, finishing neck and neck with his teammate sophomore Braylon Schoelzel, who was right behind him with a 92nd place finish in 20:36.2. Junior Carter Roth finished 99th about thirty seconds later, with a time of 21:00.0.
Freshmen Jack Sheahan and Gavin Reis rounded out Colby/Abby’s varsity finishers, with the former recording a time of 22:36.8 and the latter finishing in 22:41.7. They placed 139th and 140th respectively.
The Spencer Invitational held at Frey Field in Spencer is next up for the two teams. The meet is set for this Thursday, September 22 and will be starting at 4:00 p.m.
