October 14, 2021 at 8:19 a.m.
Hodag boys finish 2nd in Tomahawk, eye history at GNCs
Hodag boys finish 2nd in Tomahawk, eye history at GNCs
Should the Hodag harriers pull off a Great Northern Conference championship, it would be their first conference title since 1987. That year, Rhinelander temporarily disrupted Stevens Point's dominance of the Wisconsin Valley Conference and went on to win the WIAA Division 1 state title.
"It's going to be a challenge, but it's one we're ready for," Laggis said.
Rhinelander comes in looking good, finishing ahead of defending GNC champion Tomahawk last Saturday at the Hatchet Invite in Tomahawk. That result, plus a couple of head-to-head wins earlier in the season against Medford, have Rhinelander in position to end a 34-year title drought.
Just don't call the Hodags the favorite going into tomorrow's race.
"When your last conference title is 1987 ... that's a whopping underdog," Laggis said after last Saturday's race. "We've got to go in there, and that's what our meeting's going to be about, with everything to prove - proving we can do it on a big meet day like conference and compete with Medford, compete with Mosinee, compete with Tomahawk and find a way."
The numbers, however, back up the assertion that the Hodags are right in the mix of the title fight. A mock GNC meet compiled by the River News - using the season-best times of each team's varsity runners based on online records - shows Rhinelander with five of the 14 best performers in the GNC this season. That gives Rhinelander a projected 50-65 edge over Tomahawk entering the race. Medford, with Joey Sullivan the favorite to defend his individual conference title, is third in the projections with 89 points.
The Hodags helped their projection with a number of personal-best performances this past Saturday in Tomahawk.
Cal Laggis finished third the race over a fast and flat course at Edgewater Country Club with a time of 17 minutes, 2.1 seconds. Ty Welk (11th, 18:10.7), Greyson Gremban (13th, 18:11.4), Cody Ruetz (16th, 18:30.8) and Gavin Denis (28th, 19:08.3) all had personal bests in last Saturday's meet.
"Overall, it was a really good meet before we get to the big one next week," coach Laggis said. "I'm proud of Cal, great effort today. I'm proud of the entire boys' team. They got to hang together. We're going to have a team get-together tomorrow and we're going to talk about what it's going to take this week to lay down a great effort at conference."
To that end, coach Laggis said after some longer workouts Monday and Tuesday the team has tapered its training the rest of the week to be fresh for tomorrow's race.
Rhinelander finished 18 points ahead of Tomahawk last Saturday and might have won the overall title had Jack DeNamur, the team's No. 2 runner much of the season, not become ill during the final mile of the race and faded back to 57th position.
That's why coach Laggis does not see his team with one hand on the conference championship trophy quite yet. Anything can happen when one race determines a team's fate within the conference.
"I feel like we've been taking care of business against teams that we're going to compete against at conference, but everything is so fragile," coach Laggis said. "You get one chink, you're No. 2 has a bad day or is sick like what happened today, or a kid falls off at No. 5 and we just don't have it. Everything's got to come together for us to be right there next week."
On the girls' side, Rhinelander does not have the same aspirations. Varsity contributors Leah Jamison and Eva Hetland continue to miss time due to injury and the Hodags were sixth out of 10 complete teams last Saturday in Tomahawk. Sophia Miljevich turned in her second-fastest time of the season, placing 18th overall at 21:52.4. Emma Germain (24th, 22:34.2), Juliana Smith (27th, 22:40.4), Sage Flory (29th, 22:56.0) and Reese Gehrig (39th, 23:27.8) rounded out Rhinelander's scoring five on Saturday.
The Hodags appear to be chasing Medford, Mosinee, Tomahawk and Lakeland in the fight for the conference crown, so coach Laggis said he is more focused on individual improvement Saturday leading up to sectionals the following weekend in Oconto Falls.
"We're just going to talk about finish as hard as you can," he said. "We're not going to be first in the conference maybe. That's OK. How high can we finish and how well can we work together?"
Improvement may not necessarily show on the stopwatch this week. Minocqua Winter Park is one of the more challenging and undulating venues in the GNC, lending itself to slower times. Coach Laggis said the course will be yet another opponent on Saturday at it will be a battle of mind over matter.
"it's a mental game there and you've got to get over the hills," he said. "Yeah, there's hills. There's hills a lot of places. You've got to get over the hills and get it in your head that that's a fun place to run, make it fun and go and run like that. When you run, having a blast and having fun competing, you do your best."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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