Rhinelander’s Barr wins GNC cross country title

Greatness was seemingly in the cards for Rhinelander High School junior Avrom Barr at the Great Northern Conference meet. The top runner in the GNC throughout the season was randomly assigned bib No. 1 on Saturday, and that’s exactly where he finished.

Barr led nearly wire-to-wire to take the GNC meet at Rhinelander’s Northwood Golf Club. He was one of six all-conference runners for the Hodag boys as they finished a close second behind Lakeland for the conference title. The Hodag girls had two first-team all-conference finishers and placed third as a team.

Barr completed the hilly 5-kilometer course in a time of 17 minutes, 1.6 seconds and pulled away late to a more than 16-second victory over Lakeland’s Charlie Ernst. He became the first Rhinelander boy to win an individual GNC title and the first Hodag to win at conference overall since Alayna Franson in 2016. 

Confident following his win the previous Saturday at the Tomahawk Invite, Barr made good on his promise to bring the individual GNC title to Rhinelander after finishing third in last year’s conference meet.

“It was awesome. I mean, I said last week that I will be conference champ, and I proved it this week, proved it today. I came out on top, conference champion. Just like I said last week, you know, summer miles bring fall smiles. There were a lot of smiles today,” he said.

Barr and Ernst ran in lockstep for the first two-plus miles of the race. Barr made his move on a steep downhill with roughly 1,000 meters to go and stretched the margin on the uphill ascent to the finish.

“I opened up my strides and really lost him, and then we had to go up another steep hill, and I went fast up it, and I made a pretty good gap,” he said. “My last mile is pretty lethal, and no one can compare to my last mile.”

“A lot of people think that downhills are fun, and as a runner, I could tell you that I’d much rather have an up than a down,” Hodag cross country coach M.J. Laggis said. “Downs can be really challenging on your legs, and Avrom was ready for that. He was excited for it. His attitude showed it.”

Ernst sat out last weekend’s race in Tomahawk and, with him back in the lineup, Lakeland’s depth was too much for Rhinelander to overcome in the team standings. Lakeland placed three runners in the top six and five in the top 14.

The Hodags countered with five in the top 16, but came up five points short in the final tally — 34-39.

“Lakeland made a comment that we made it interesting, and I think we did a lot more than that,” Laggis said. “We were a team that was getting beat by them by 60 points in the beginning of the year. And today we pulled it within five. I give them credit. They’re very good, but I’ve got to say that our mantra is this we keep getting better, and we work hard, and we’re a blue-collar team. No doubt about it. We closed that gap significantly.”

While Barr earned conference runner of the year honors by virtue of his win, junior teammate Jackson Weinzatl joined him as a first-team all-conference honoree with a fifth-place finish on the day (18:13.2). Second-team honors went to Jonathan Campbell (11th, 18:38.7) and Michael Brunette (12th, 18:52.7). Grant Gremban received honorable mention (16th, 19:14.9) as did Ayden Myers (21st, 19:25.9).

“Jackson Weinzatl, my gosh, that kid has improved and has come so far. And you just look at the body of work that these guys have done, I’m really happy with that,” Laggis said. “Other than Ayden, these guys are all coming back. And, you know, we’re going to be a challenge. We’re going to make it interesting again next year.”

Macy Myers finished fourth in the conference girls’ race for the second year in a row and once again earned first-team honors. The Hodag junior crossed the line in 20:28.1 — roughly 25 seconds behind race winner Lindsay Kahn of Medford. 

    Rhinelander’s Kara Monk races Lakeland’s Addison Eggen for position during the second mile of the Great Northern Conference cross country championship meet at Northwood Golf Club in Rhinelander Saturday, Oct. 18. Monk finished sixth and was one of two Hodag girls, along with Macy Myers, to earn first-team all-conference honors. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

Myers was joined on the first team by fellow junior Kara Monk, who came home sixth at 20:54.2. It was the first all-conference award for Monk after finishing 28th at last year’s conference meet.

“I can’t say enough about Macy either. Again, all summer long, her attitude as the season starts is just a fantastic work ethic. And she’s just a salt-of-the-earth person,” Laggis said. “Kara Monk had such a trainwreck of a year last year, with health and battling injury and so on. She has just come on this year. She is so athletic and so strong to have those girls running one and two, you couldn’t have better examples on a team. You couldn’t have better leaders on a girls’ team.”

Matthew Wood (34th, 20:28.3) and Wyatt Crowell (47th, 21:24.2) rounded out the contingent for the Hodag boys. Gabby Wanta was 24th for the Hodag girls (24:49.5) followed by Noelle Mayo in 28th (25:40.2), Emily Schiek in 41st (28:58.3) and Morgan Cahee in 42nd (29:15.3).

Kahn tracked down Lakeland’s Emerson Rubo over the final 600 meters and defeated the freshman by 2.6 seconds to repeat as individual conference champion. Medford placed five runners in the top 13 to unseat reigning GNC girls’ champion Tomahawk by 10 points for the conference crown. 

Saturday’s race marked the first for the Hodags at Northwood as the team worked with course and the city of Rhinelander to carve out a trail that included parts of 12 holes and cutthrough trails at the city-owned facility. 

Laggis said the course lived up to his expectations as a championship-caliber test.

“(Parks director) Jeremy Biolo from the city was just outstanding and helping us put this together. Josh Luse, the assistant superintendent out here, did a fantastic job. The course is in perfect shape,” Laggis said. “We laid this course out, and we looked at it, and we just said, ‘If you’re a team getting ready to go run in the state tournament, in (Wisconsin) Rapids, this is the kind of course you want to be running this time of year.’ So it was fantastic. I’m so proud and happy that we were able to put it together.”

Rhinelander will head to Merrill this coming Friday for a WIAA Division 2 sectional. The Hodag boys will be looking to qualify for the WIAA state meet for the second year in a row while the Hodags girls will be looking to send an individual or two to state after barely missing out last year.

In the interest of full disclosure, the River News notes that the author of this story has a family member who is an athlete on the RHS cross country team. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].