Bulldog rise to the challenge in Monticello

By Fred Kroner

The Bulldogs placed second on Saturday (Oct. 17) in an elite seven-school boys’ cross-country meet at Lodge Park, in Monticello.

Five schools were state-ranked last week in the milesplit.com poll.

The team champion was St. Joseph-Ogden (ranked 12^th in Class 1A) with 47 points. M-S (ranked 11^th in Class 2A) was next with 52 points. Following them were Monticello (ranked sixth in Class 1A) with 61 points, Stanford Olympia (No. 1 in Class 1A) with 90 points and Paxton-Buckley-Loda (No. 23 in Class 1A) with 109 points.

M-S also had the No. 2 runner in the 42-person boys’ varsity race.

Kyle Nofziger was five seconds behind the winner, completing the 3-mile course in 15 minutes, 45.67 seconds.

The next four Bulldogs were packed together within 16 seconds of one another.

Jonah Singer was 10^th in 16:42.06. He was followed by Joseph Scheele (11^th in 16:42.81), Taylor Fan (12^th in 16:45.58) and Hayden Grotelueschen (17^th in 16:58.01).

Also running in the varsity race were Joe Taylor (18^th in 17:00.78) and Ben Wallace (31^st in 18.34.02).

In the open race, M-S cruised to the team title with a composite score of 19 points. The Bulldogs had the first three finishers and eight of the top nine runners.

Matthew Sims was the open race winner with a time of 17:29.02. Just behind him was Justin Straub (17:30.83). In third place was Karsten Waisath (17:33.43).

The next four Bulldogs crossed the finish line within 22 seconds of one another, led by Gabe Difanis (sixth in 17:56.80). Trailing him were Gabe Wisnasky (seventh in 17:57.73), Nick Mies (eighth in 18:12.11) and Caleb Dowers (ninth in 18:18.71).

The other M-S athletes in the open race were: Gage Williams (11^th in 18:28.34), Finn Randolph (12^th in 18:28.59), Grant Smysor (20^th in 19:25.10), Avery Seaman (25^th in 19:53.97) and Alex Carpenter (37^th in 26:02.61).

M-S returns to action on Saturday (Oct. 24) in the 11-school Class 2A Taylorville Regional.