Colfax girls clean up at Bruce Invite, boys take fourth

BRUCE — Running in much more comfortable weather than the previous meet in Boyceville five days earlier, the Colfax cross country teams both had strong showings as the girls won their division in the ten team Bruce Invitational, four points ahead of Phillips, while the boys were fourth in a field of eight teams.

Taking the top three spots in any race usually gives your team a pretty good chance to win which is what the girls did as Dannielle Dachel continues to impress everyone by winning the race with a time of 16:53.4 while teammate Courtney Dressel was a second behind at 16:54.9. Dempsey Fogarty, the first runner in for the team in every meet last season, was a close third at 17:20 and the Vikings fourth runner, Abbagail Schotter came in at 19:10 for 17th place. Ally Heidorn finished 24th in 19:40 and Heidi Lieffort followed in 32nd in 20:17 while Cienna Cooper placed 39th at 20:32. There were 93 individual runners in the competition.

“It was a great day to run and the girls did much better than at the Boyceville meet,” Colfax coach Joe Doucette said. “Our first three runners gave us a great lead pack and we needed that to beat strong teams from Phillips and Chequamegon. Dannielle is a real competitor but she surprised even me. Our 4-5-6 runners were also solid and that helped too. We are not in great shape yet but we have a lot of potential and a lot of room to grow.”

With 110 individuals in the boys’ race, the Vikings were led by Hunter Lieffort with an 11th place finish at 19:37, followed by Tucker Hovde in 16th at 20:00 and on his shoulder Zack Arvold in 17th at 20:05. After Brett Prince came in as the fourth runner in 20th place at 20:10, there was a gap before Jacob Larson crossed the line in 46th place in 21:36. Isaac Lee kept pace with Larson, coming in just two spots back in 48th at 21:56 and Grady Gibson, Brad Foyt and Nate Leibfried came in together as Gibson was 58th in 22:50, Foyt 59th in 22:56 and Leibfried was 60th at 22:59. Rowdy Kadinger came in at 25:18 for 82nd place and David Blanchard crossed the finish line in 28:22 for 104th place. The top three places went to Chequamegon runners to lead them to the team title as Jordan Koski was the individual winner in 17:31.

“Our first three runners are the only ones with varsity experience,” Doucette said. “They ran pretty well but I thought they went out a bit hard and faded some. It was their first race of the year and it was more good then bad. Brett was very good in the fourth spot and he has a lot of potential. We need to get better in the 5-6-7 spot but we have three or four workouts before we race again,” he added.

Both Colfax Middle School teams won their races with six teams in each division consisting of runners in grades 5-8. Top ten finishers for the girls were Morgan Schleusner (6), Mackenzie Jensen (7) and Jayna Bowe (9). For the boys, Dalton Schotter (5), Andrew Schneider (8) and Jacob Jensen (9).

GIRLS VARSITY TEAM SCORES: Colfax 43, Phillips 47, Chequamegon 53, Flambeau 132, Hurley 144, Cornell-Lake Holcombe 155, Chetek-Weyerhaeuser 205, Ladysmith 226, Shell Lake 237, Boyceville 241

BOYS VARSITY TEAM SCORES: Chequamegon 23, Chetek-Weyerhaeuser 74, Drummond 79, Colfax 95, Boyceville 127, Phillips 161, Butternut 182, Ladysmith 216