Hodag boys claim Medford XC Invite

Depth ruled the afternoon Thursday for the Rhinelander High School boys’ cross country team as it captured its first meet victory of the season. 

The Hodags placed five runners in the top 12 as it won the five-team Medford Invite around the campus of Medford High School. Rhinelander took down GNC rivals Medford and Northland Pines and finished the night 24 points head of runner-up Ashland. 

“The boys, they’re a hard-working group. They go after it. It was nice to see them have success tonight as well,” Hodag cross country coach M.J. Laggis said.

The Hodags took third in the girls’ race, only 14 points out of a first-place tie between Medford and Ashland. 

As he has all season, senior Greyson Gremban led the way for the Hodags, breezing through the five-kilometer course in a time of 16 minutes, 46.9 seconds. That was roughly 19 seconds off the pace of race winner Tristan Blancarte of Ashland. 

As he’s been all season, sophomore Avrom Barr wasn’t far behind Gremban. Barr came home third on Thursday with a time of 17:17.3.

The two were joined in the top 10 by senior Brody Kowieski, who came home fifth with his fastest time of the season (18:03.6), and sophomore Jackson Weinzatl, who made the podium with a ninth-place run (18:36.8).

“Greyson and Avrom were fantastic. The work ethic is there and they deserve to have nights like tonight for sure,” Laggis said. “Brody has been so smart all year about trying to bring himself back and get himself ready to race. Tonight he beat a kid that had been beating him by a good, solid 30 seconds earlier in the year. That was pretty neat to see. Brody looked really strong and medaled. It was awesome to see Jackson get a medal. Jackson had a strong finish as well. Four boys medalling was great.”

Freshman Michael Brunette came home 12th overall in 19:21.1. He was followed by Grant Gremban in 16th (19:35.2) and Wyatt Crowell in 21st (20:25.7) to round out the Hodags’ scorers and displacers. 

The Hodags girls were without No. 2 runner Macy Myers on Thursday, but still managed to place three runners in the top 10 and five in the top 20. 

Senior Brynn Teter once again was Rhinelander’s top finisher. She placed third with a 21:49.5, which was 1:32 behind winner Lindsay Kahn of Medford. Sophomore Kara Monk was eighth (23:02.6) and senior Sophie Miljevich finished 10th (23:20.8).

“I was happy that we had three girls medal,” Laggis said. “Brynn had a fantastic race and Kara and Sophie ran really well. It was really nice to see Sophie, as a senior, medal. That was a good thing for sure. Kara continues to improve and seeing Brynn third overall, she really just had a fantastic race as well. Those three in particular had big nights and ran really well.”

Hayley Schiek was 12th for Rhinelander (23:23.1), followed by Luna Grage in 19th (24:13.2), Gabby Wanta in 22nd (24:33.5) and Gretchen Fiebke in 23rd (24:34.5).

Medford placed five runners in the top 15 and sixth runner Greta Seidel edged Ashland’s No. 6 Natalie Bybee for 16th as the Raiders claimed the tiebreaker over Oredockers for the meet title. Medford, along with Tomahawk and Lakeland, figures to be one of the top contenders for the GNC title in less than two weeks time and Laggis said he knows his girls’ team isn’t far off the pace. 

“They weren’t a long way off,” he said. “We didn’t have Macy tonight. Not having her, that’s been our solid No. 2 for sure but we’ve just got to keep getting better and get ready for conference time.”

The Hodags will take part in a important conference primer this afternoon as they travel to Eagle River for the Northland Pines Invite. Five of the seven GNC schools will be in today’s field in preparation for the conference meet which will be held on the same course Oct. 19. 

“It means a lot more to go there Tuesday, run the course and get a feel for it,” Laggis said. “People can step back and look at what they did at certain points of the race, where they were at and adjustments they want to make for the conference meet. I think, more than ever, it’s important to be there, to run it and to have that feel and the confidence of knowing the course.” 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].