Topper boys’ harriers finish third in Rice Lake, win Boyceville CC Invite with perfect score

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Two more races last week yielded another pair of top finishes for the Glenwood City boys’ cross country squad.

With close to 1,000 runners and three dozen teams competing in the annual UW-Barron County Cross Country Invitational hosted by Rice Lake High School last Tuesday, September 12, the Hilltopper boys finished third out of the 13 schools that scored team points in the small school division.

Four days later, Glenwood City’s boys captured the title at the Boyceville Cross Country Invitational as it finished with a perfect score in the Saturday, September 16 event.

The middle school boys also finished in eighth place in Rice Lake.

The Hilltopper harriers ran at Cadott yesterday (Tuesday, September 19) and will be racing at Rolling Greens Golf Course in Durand this Thursday. Rolling Greens will host the Dunn-St. Croix Conference meet next month.

UW-Barron County Invite

Upwards of 1000 runners from 30 plus schools throughout Northwestern Wisconsin converged on the UW-Barron County campus in Rice Lake Tuesday, September 12 for one of the season’s premier cross country races.

With 214 boys participating in the combined large and small school varsity race, Glenwood City saw three of its runners finish among the top 50 which boosted the Topper boys to a third-place finish in the small school standings with 80 points.

As he has done throughout the first month of the 2023 season, sophomore Clayton Hoffman led the way for the Hilltoppers, placing 20th overall in a time of 17:19.44. Senior Connor Berends came across the line just over ten second later to finish 28th in 17:30.10. Junior Ilan Anderson ran a 18:05.67 to take 46th. Fellow juniors Zeb Holden and Elliott Springborn rounded out Glenwood City’s top five as Holden ran a 18:41.59 for 77th and Springborn took 86th in 18:55.99. Senior Jonas Draxler finished in 19:02.63 to earn the 91st position and freshman Eli Oberle crossed the finish in 115th place with a time of 19:45.37.

Grantsburg won the small school crown with 71 points with Chippewa Falls McDonell taking second with a score of 75.

Seven other GC boys participated in the junior varsity race. Sophomore Garrett Gross finished third in that competition with a time of 18:44.94. Senior Riley Krueger ran a 20:33.70 to take 19th and sophomore Ben Standaert finished 27th in 20:51.40. Another sophomore Micah Simmons and junior Tyler Rogers completed the team scoring, Simmons placed 65th overall in 22:14.10 and Rogers was the 125th runner to finish with a time of 25:05.84. Junior Evan Hojem (131st) and sophomore Alex Anderson (139th) completed the squad.

The Topper’s junior varsity boys finished fifth out of 14 teams with a score of 180.

All three of the Glenwood City high school girls ran in the junior varsity race. Junior Elsja Meijer placed fourth in 23:02.84, fellow junior Stephanie Anderson finished in 27:40.4 to place 59th and freshman Erica Bauman took 58th with a time of 28:09.67.

Seventh-grader Jaycie Oberle continued to do well in the middle school competitions as she grabbed a second-place finish in Rice Lake. Oberle ran the 3K race in 11:16.59. Emilyn Hoffman (24th), Aletta Meijer (44th), Sadie Rudolph (77th) and Sophia Giammattei (184th) completed the squad which finished eighth out of 19 complete teams after scoring 245 points.

Glenwood City had three boys in the middle school race. Sixth-graders Lyle Wagner and George Lorenz finished 95th and 165th, respectively, and eighth-grader Gavin Gross finished 207th.

Boyceville Invitational

The Glenwood City boys had six of the top seven finishes in the Boyceville Cross Country Invitational held Saturday morning, September 16 at Tiffany Creek Elementary.

Sophomore Clayton Hoffman won the race in 17:32.64. Connor Berends (17:49.10) was third, Ilan Anderson (18:48.68) took fourth, Elliott Springborn (19:21.06) finished fifth, Zeb Holden (19:32.47) crossed in sixth and Jonas Draxler (19:33.41) placed seventh.

When the team scores were calculated the top five places went to Topper runners which resulted in a perfect score of 15 points for the win. Wisconsin Rapids Assumption (54) took second and Boyceville (67) was third. The other two schools, Flambeau and Elmwood/Plum City did not have enough runners for a team score.

Seven other Toppers runners also competed in the race, Eli Oberle (13th), Riley Krueger (19th), Ben Standaert (20th), Micah Simmons (21st), Tyler Rogers (25th), Alex Anderson (26th) and Evan Hojem (31st).

Elsja Meijer (8th, 23:23.17), Kayley Dickmann (17th, 29:43.25) and Erica Bauman (18th, 29:30.58) competed for the GC girls.

Assumption won the girls title with 17 points and Boyceville was second with 41.

Jaycie Oberle won the girls’ middle school race in 12:54.8 with Emilyn Hoffman taking 6th (14:39.78), Aletta Meijer finished tenth (16:01.58) and Sophia Giammattei placed 20th (19:43.82).

The middle school boys were led by Lyle Wagner’s ninth-place finish (14:18.99). George Lorenz was 24th (17:00.29), Jaiden Verdeja took 29th (18:48.74) and Gavin Gross finished 32nd (21:07.15).