October 26, 2022 at 11:08 a.m.
Ruetz readies for final high school race
Hodag senior to compete at state cross country meet Saturday
Ruetz readies for final high school race
Ruetz said Tuesday that the reality has not sunk in yet, after last Saturday's fifth-place finish in the Oconto Falls sectional extended his high school career by a week and earned him a berth to Saturday's state meet at The Ridges in Wisconsin Rapids.
"I think it will start kicking in more Thursday or Friday when I'm really in that zone," he said. "I'm still kind of on that runner's high right now from Saturday."
Ruetz joins some rarified air, at least during coach M.J. Laggis' 10 years at the helm of the Hodag cross country program. He will join Alayna Franson as the only RHS athlete to compete in multiple state meets. Franson qualified three times as an individual. Ruetz was part of last year's boys' team that placed ninth at state and will now get a chance to race the event solo.
"Being his senior year, that's they way to go out," coach Laggis said. "Cody's, I believe, the first boy in my time here to go twice in his career. That's really cool."
Ruetz admitted things will feel different this year without a group of teammates to push him on the course. Last year, he was part of a pack behind top runner Cal Laggis that helped solidify the team's position in races. This year, he's ascended to the role of top runner and has consistently posted times that have been within a handful of seconds of what Laggis ran last year.
"Cody's kind of had to take the reigns and get guys going," coach Laggis said. "He's had Greyson Gremban right there with him, and Gavin Denis and we developed a nice core of boys this year and developed some real leadership going into next year."
Ruetz finished 79th in last year's state race with a time of 18 minutes, 5.4 seconds. He figures to go considerably faster this time around. His fastest time of the season was 17:15.0, posted Sept. 23 at the Three Lakes Invite. He nearly matched his PR last Saturday with a time of 17:17.5 at sectionals.
Ruetz's time was 42nd overall among all runners last weekend in eight Division 2 sectionals held statewide. There's certainly some apples to oranges comparisons there with varying degrees of difficulty from venue to venue.
Ruetz said his goal, like last year, is to finish the season with a personal best at state. His current PR of 17:15 would have put him 27th in last year's D2 field.
"I think the big goal for him is to shoot for top 25 and go from there," coach Laggis said. "You never know what the day's going be exactly like, how fast the field is going to feel on that given day. So I think top 25's a great goal and take it from there.
"After looking at the times for the qualifiers this year, I'm going to shoot for top 30, probably top 25, just because that's my range for the times I've been running this year," Ruetz concurred. "It's a difficult course, compared to like Three Lakes, so I'm just going to try to stay in that range, maybe PR."
To Ruetz's point, the course at The Ridges features two climbs of more than 40 feet over the final half of the race. Rhinelander has not run on a course with that much elevation change since early in the season.
That's where Ruetz said having past experience at state is a "huge advantage."
"For one, I know the course, so I know where the hills are going to be, where I need to slow if I have to and push where I need to," he said. "You've got these teams with first-time qualifiers and they've got freshmen on the team. These freshmen, when they get to this big crowd, it's going to be a lot different for them than these meets in the GNC.
"The adrenaline rush from all the screaming is crazy, but it's almost a disadvantage when it comes to (managing race pace). You speed up and you're not running your race. That can really cost you in the end."
Practice has been light and low-key this week in the run up to Saturday. That's mainly by design with Ruetz in full-on taper mode to be as fresh as possible for the meet.
"We're keeping just a steady decline right now, just keeping the mileage pretty low," he said. "The diet's staying relatively the same. I don't want to change anything this week. Saturday, I'm going to eat a huge breakfast and then run that race."
Greyson Gremban, who came within one position and 6.1 seconds of joining Ruetz at state, has been part of the training group this week, along with fellow sophomore Brody Kowieski. They will be among those set to take the mantle of team leader from Ruetz once he crosses the finish line Saturday and ends his high school career. That's not dissimilar to the position Ruetz was in last year when he was the one taking the reigns from a strong senior class.
"Cody will leave a legacy behind now with (junior) Gavin Denis, and Greyson. He did a real good job this year kind of picking up where we left off last year," coach Laggis said.
Saturday's D2 boys' race will begin at 2:35 p.m.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
WEATHER SPONSORED BY
E-Editions
Latest News
E-Editions
Events
August
To Submit an Event Sign in first
Today's Events
No calendar events have been scheduled for today.
Comments:
You must login to comment.