MCDONALD'S SWNEWS4U.COM GAME OF THE WEEK (Oct. 17–24)
WIAA CROSS COUNTRY: Division 3 Poynette Sectional

By A.J. Gates, Herald Independent 

Lancaster girls claim sectional title to earn return trip to state

POYNETTE — Lancaster coach Taylor Reynolds didn’t overwhelm the seven members of this year’s girls cross country team with an overabundance of instructions at last Friday’s division 3 Poynette Sectional. He kept it relatively simple.

“Get out and do your thing, and if you see red, go to work and compete tough,” Reynolds told his girls.

Aside from the fact that this year’s Lancaster girls cross country team has some of the best runners in this part of the state, Reynolds’ advice paid off for the Flying Arrows, who finished first at the sectional meet and punched their ticket to the WIAA State Championships in Wisconsin Rapids.

With a team score of 61, the Lady Arrows finished five points ahead of second place Darlington and 48 points ahead of third-place Boscobel, both of whom sport the school color red.

“At this point after racing Darlington and Boscobel so much throughout the year, they already know who they have to battle with,” Reynolds explained.

“The mindset going in was that we knew it was going to be really tough with Darlington and Boscobel being so tough and being ranked, we just went in there with the mindset of giving our best effort,” he added.

“If it’s not your best day, which sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t, you can always control if it’s your best effort,” he added. “The depth of our team is rock solid, so we knew that even if someone did have an off day, if they had their best effort it would still give us a really good chance to complete our goal. The focus was on best effort for that day.”

For the Lancaster ladies, this year’s trip to the state championships marks the seventh consecutive season with a state berth, and with two juniors, two sophomores and two freshman running at state this year, a few more trips in the future may be in order.

The undeniable leader of this years group is senior Mallory Olmstead though, who finished third of 120 female runners at Friday’s sectional with a time of 19:58.31. Olmstead will be making her fourth trip to the state championships, where she finished 64th as a freshman, 11th as a sophomore and 23rd last year as a junior.

“She is coming on strong at the right time,” said coach Reynolds of Olmstead. “She’s always been tough and always been determined, but I think for all runners, and I’m seeing it especially with Mallory, when you’re a senior and there’s no tomorrow, you just know that there’s an extra edge that comes out. She is running really, really strong at the right time. She’s grabbing some extra gears right now.”

All seven of Lancaster’s varsity runners finished among the top 30 at Friday’s sectional meet, with their front five finishing among the top 19.

“I always say that if you’re at sectionals and in the top 25, sometimes top 30, you’re kind of elite for the area,” Reynolds said.

Finishing 10th for the Arrows was sophomore Kylie Olmstead with a time of 20:51.29, followed by freshman Katie Murphy in 13th (21:03.59), sophomore Sara McWilliams in 16th (21:36.61), junior Carly Vesperman in 19th (21:49.30), freshman Brielle Schmitz in 26th (22:37.29) and junior Macie Galle in 29th (22:54.22).

“It was a very, very fun afternoon,” Reynolds said of the sectional meet. “All of the kids ran awesome, and especially the girls winning by five points. They battled hard for that thing all the way to the finish, and it was awesome to see them battle so tough.”

Saturday’s state championships in Wisconsin Rapids will begin at Noon with the division 3 boys race. The division 3 girls are schedule to start at 1:45 p.m., with the awards ceremony schedule to be held at 3:30.

“We just want to get out in good position and then with a mile to go be where we need to be so we can compete to the best of our ability and let the chips fall where they may,” Reynolds said the team’s plan at state.

For the Lancaster boys, a score of 312 put the Arrows in 11th place among 21 competing teams, while Fennimore won the team title with a score of 53, followed by Boscobel in second at 132.

Logan Harding led Lancaster with a time of 19:22.50 to finish 40th of 142 runners. He was followed by Marshall Harris in 41st (19:22.89), Brady Sperle in 50th (19:39.08), Clement Duve in 88th (20:47.04), Jon Lindholm in 102nd (21:16.55), Seaver Sperle in 116th (21:55.22) and Max Baudhuin in 125th (22:24.43).