GC boys’ cross country team opens season with second-place finish in Grantsburg
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GRANTSBURG — With an eye on returning to the state meet in late October, the Glenwood City boys’ cross country team got the season off to a fine start last Thursday, August 24 placing second in the annual Carlyle Sherstad Memorial Invitational in Grantsburg.
Led by a pair of top-five individual finishers, the Hilltopper boys scored 75 points to finish 11 points behind winner and host Grantsburg who tallied a low score of 64. In all, nine schools had complete squads while the girls’ competition, which featured half a dozen full teams, was won by Mound-Westonka, MN with 24 points with Spooner placing second at 80 points.
Sophomore Clayton Hoffman and senior Connor Berends led the way for the Glenwood City boys placing third and fourth, respectively, in a field of 98 runners. In their first official race of the 2023 campaign, Hoffman ran the 5,000-meter Grantsburg course in 18.29.4 with Berends finishing less than 10 seconds later in 18.38.5.
A trio of juniors were next to finish for the Topper boys. Ilan Anderson trucked across the finish line in 20:32.9 to place 19th, followed by Zeb Holden in 20:44.2 for 24th and Elliott Springborn ran a 21:10.0 to take 31st and rounded out the top five GC runners.
Senior Jonas Draxler took 34th in 21:25.5, freshman Eli Oberle ran a 22:12.5 for 46th and sophomore Ben Standaert came in 57th with a time of 23:20.7.
On the girls’ side, Glenwood City had just two runners compete at Grantsburg – juniors Elsja Meijer and Stephanie Anderson. Meijer finished in 24:52.8 to place 16th while Anderson ran a 32:40.2 to place 40th in a field of 50 competitors.
Because the Topper girls had just a pair of runners they were not eligible to receive a team score.
Topper runners are scheduled to compete this Thursday, August 31 at an invitational at St. Croix Central.
Middle School
Glenwood City also found success in the middle school races.
The Topper middle school girls’ squad placed fourth with a score of 108 points and were led by seventh-grader Jaycie Oberle who won the girls’ race in a time of 10:25.6. Classmate Emilyn Hoffman ran a 12:48 to take 17th, eighth-grader Aletta Meijer placed 27th in 14:01.5, seventh-grader Sadie Rudolph came in 33rd with a time of 14:24.9, and sixth-grader Sophia Giammattei was clocked in 16:48.1 and came in 54th. There were 64 girls in the middle school race.
Three boys competed for Glenwood City in the middle school competition. Sixth-grader Lyle Wagner had the best finish taking 43rd in 13:03 while eighth-graders Jaiden Verdeja and Gavin Gross placed 60th and 65th, respectively, with times of 15:32.1 and 17:11.4. 67 runners competed for the boys.