October 26, 2022 at 11:07 a.m.
Lester claims state JV-3 mountain bike title
Lester claims state JV-3 mountain bike title
Lester jumped out to an early lead and held off Madison West's Ryan Kahl by more than 1 minute, 16 seconds for the win in the league's second-highest classification. By doing so, she beat Kahl by 29 points for the overall season title.
It marked the fourth straight season that the RNC program has brought home a team and/or individual state championship. The string started in 2018. The WHSCL did not compete in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Her training was leading up all for this race. You almost have to when you have a big goal like that," said Macy's father, RNC head coach Jon Lester. "She was real self-driven as far as getting her workouts complete the last couple of months. It's mostly on her. She really did a great job."
That was the highlight of an overall strong day for the RNC team in only the second race of the season that featured all the WHSCL programs. The RNC partition - made up of riders from Three Lakes, Lakeland and Tomahawk - took fourth out of 51 teams in Division 2 while the Rhinelander High School partition was seventh out of 31 teams in Division 1.
As has been her tactic much of the season, Macy Lester attacked early on Sunday and held on. She led by more than a minute following the first lap of the roughly 16-mile race and widened that gap to nearly two minutes after the second lap. She finished the race in 1:12:01.72, which would have put her sixth in the varsity division - where she will almost certainly compete next season.
"We were nervous about her attacking right away," Jon Lester said, noting a headwind at the start that made attacking early an energy-consuming gamble, "But she attacked right away and made it stick."
Macy Lester is the program's fourth individual girls' champion in the last five years. Her older sister, Megan, was the freshman champ in 2018, the JV-3 champion in 2019 and the varsity champion last year. Johanna Craig won the varsity title in 2018 and Sage Flory won the JV-2 title in 2018.
The Hodags had five seniors racing for the final time, and most all of them went out with a bang. Jett Biolo scored his best finish of the year, taking sixth in the varsity
boys' race, covering 21 miles in 1:24:06.55 seconds.
"Jett had a goal to be in the top 10 and to see him almost get the podium was so cool," coach Lester noted.
Carter Johnson and Tyler Marquardt finished their career placing seventh and 11th, respectively, in the Division 2 JV-3 boys' race.
"They both had their best race ever. It was great," Lester said. "I'm catching them at all different parts of the course and you could just see the determination. They wouldn't even look up at me. They were just so focused. You could tell they wanted to end it with a bang."
Layne Roeser was 15th in the D1 JV-3 boys' race and newcomer Aidan Gatewood was 101st in the D1 JV-2 boys' race.
Holden Schmitz was the only other Hodag rider on the podium, the RHS freshman finished third in the D1 boys' freshman race. Cody Price was sixth in the D2 boys' freshman race, Violet Biolo was eighth in the girls' freshman race and Olin Slette was 10th in the D1 boys' freshman race.
Joey Belanger, last year's D2 JV-3 boys' champion, was 16th in the boys' varsity division. Emma Mankus was 41st in the JV-2 girls' race and Nathan Cordy finished 71st in the D1 JV-2 boys' race.
In middle school action, Henry Schmitz, Tyler Price and Austen Slette were 35th, 51st and 108th, respectively, in the seventh-grade boys' race.
Coach Lester credited good finishes in three split-series races in the middle of the season that allowed the majority of Hodag riders to have good starting positions for Sunday's event, which featured nearly 1,200 riders in 17 different middle and high school categories. It was the first time the entire WHSCL rode together since the season opener in Cable Sept. 3.
"I didn't know what to expect there with the whole crowd," he said. "There were other races that finished, I guess virtually you would say, in races that we didn't race in. It was hard to tell where we were going to be and they all impressed me. They raced just like we were at one of our smaller venues with similar results. It was fantastic."
After back-to-back state titles, the RNC team finished seventh this year in the Division 2 standings. In addition to Macy Lester's JV-3 girls' title, Cody Price was eighth in the freshman boys' standings, Johnson was 13th in JV-3 boys, Marquardt was 15th in JV-3 boys and Kylie Lester, who did not race Sunday, was 26th in the freshman girls' standings.
The RHS team was ninth out of 31 teams in Division 1, up from 15th a season ago. Holden Schmitz finished on the overall podium, in fourth in the freshman boys' standings with teammate Olin Slette placing ninth. Jett Biolo and Belanger were 15th and 27th, respectively, in the varsity boys' standings. Violet Biolo finished sixth in freshman girls, Roeser was 14th in JV-3 boys and Mankus was 24th in JV-2 girls. Cordy and Gatewood were 66th and 97th, respectively, in JV-2 boys.
"When you can pull those kind of results out of 50 teams and a lot of them are bigger city teams, it really speaks volume for what we have up here - just for community and for dedicated athletes, dedicated parents, coaches," coach Lester said. "It definitely shows in the results."
The program will likely need to do some recruiting next season to remain competitive in the team standings, as it loses five seniors and had no eighth-grade racers this year. Coach Lester said team plans to hold an introductory day for potential new riders next spring and has some members who rode recreationally this fall that could bolster the numbers, should they decide to compete next year.
"We do have some members that didn't race this year but would really race well and finish well if they race," he said. "I was kind of hinting around to those athletes that they might want to give it a try next year. I know they have the skills and definitely have the speed. We'll see what happens and we're just going to keep moving forward and work on growing it."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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