September 25, 2019 at 1:08 p.m.
Hodags harriers preview GNC venue at Antigo Invite
Hodags harriers preview GNC venue at Antigo Invite
The Hodag girls placed second and the Hodag boys were third in the five-team Antigo Invite, which was held at the Gartzke Flowage, roughly 15 minutes east of Antigo in the town of Polar.
Next month will be Antigo's first time hosting the GNCs since 2012. That year the event was held at Riverview Golf Course. Laggis said Tuesday's race was an eye-opening experience as to what the conference will face next month.
"The course is a bear. It's in the middle of the woods and it's a lot of up and down," he said. "I was shocked by a couple of things. No. 1, I was shocked by just how narrow the starting and finishing area is. There were only four teams, basically, today - Antigo doesn't have enough for a full team. I can't imagine a conference meet there with seven teams all full with runners."
Laggis said the terrain was comparable to Minocqua Winter Park of Rhinelander's Cedric A. Vig Outdoor Classroom in terms of elevation change and challenging inclines.
"The one benefit is just seeing how hilly it is and how narrow the starting area is," he said. "It's just a real narrow finish and straight up a hill. I mean it's straight up a hill for 150 yards to the finish. I'll tell you what, it's a different animal."
As for the race itself, the Hodag girls finished second despite scratching No. 1 runner Abbey Henrichs from the event due to illness. Junior Ali DeNamur stepped up in Henrichs' absence to lead the Hodags. She placed ninth overall in the field with a time of 24 minutes, 59.3 seconds.
Rhinelander then had a clump of runners together finishing in the teens. Audrey Schiek was 13th, followed by Sage Flory in 14th, Emma Germain in 15th and Ella Schiek in 16th.
"I'm really proud of Ali. She just trucks right along. She just works at it and did a great job," Laggis noted. "I think Emma Germain and Sage Flory kind of had breakout races today in that they felt strong and looked good, not that anyone's times were earth-shattering, but they had strong races. That was a good thing to have happen."
Megan Brown was 23rd and Aubrey Younker finished 27th to round out the Hodag varsity.
Jacob Weddle was back on form for Rhinelander after running off the pace at Saturday's Smiley Invite in Wausau due to illness. Weddle finished third overall on Tuesday with a time of 20:08.2, roughly 40 seconds off the pace of winner Joseph Sullivan from Medford.
Cal Laggis was second across for Rhinelander in ninth overall. Daniel Goldsworthy was 14th, Nathaniel Gibbs was 23rd, Cody Ruetz finished 24th, Marcus O'Malley was 26th and Jack DeNamur finished 27th.
Coach Laggis noted that trouble befell typical varsity scorer Jaden Beske on the course, which prevented Beske from finishing the race.
"Jaden Beske was having a good race at the time, went down and banged up his knee, was bleeding and whatnot, and Konnor Kennedy stopped his race to help him off," Laggis said. "He kind of gave up his time and gave up his race to help a teammate out. That was a pretty notable and pretty cool thing that happened there today."
Kennedy finished 58th overall in the race after stopping to assist Beske.
Times were slow on a warm, muggy afternoon. The challenge course aided in the slower times. Only two runners cracked the 20-minute barrier in the boys' race. Merrill's Elizabeth Schmidt won the girls' race with a time of 21:31.8. No other runner broke 23 minutes in the girls' race.
"Kids were talking about how their times were slower. Yeah, they were, but so were Medford's," Laggis said. "They dominated. They won, but their times were slower, too. It was a challenging course, good to run it, good to know the layout."
Rhinelander races again this afternoon in Three Lakes.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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