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North Crawfords Helen Carstens wins cross country sectional
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HELEN CARSTENS, right, runs with Lancasters Lyd-ia Murphy at the WIAA Cross Country Sectional Meet in Fennimore on Sat-urday, Oct. 21.

NORTH CRAWFORD - North Crawford Cross Country freshman runner Helen Carstens won the Fennimore WIAA Sectional Cross Country Meet on Saturday, Oct. 21.

Carstens will move on to compete at the WIAA State Cross Country Championships on Saturday, October 28, 2017.

Having won her last six cross country meets, Helen entered the meet with confidence, but would face two girls who had beaten her earlier in the season-including last year’s state cross country runner up Lydia Murphy of Lancaster.

Carstens ran a very strategic race and after two miles into the race, it was just her and Murphy left to battle for the win. Murphy was leading by a short margin, but with a half mile left in the race, she made her move and pulled away for the win. Carstens won the meet in a very good time of 20:25, followed by Murphy in second place with a time of 20:51.

Lancaster girls won the meet and Marshall came in second to advance to the state meet as teams. Darlington boys also won while New Glarus/Monticello finished in second to also qualify for the state meet.

Other results for the North Crawford girls were:

Katie Shellhorn – 66th – 27:39, Grace Corlis – 71st – 28:30, Nagore Beremosolo – 89th – 30:18, Sara Martinez – 94th – 30:51. The girls finished in 12th place as a team.

For the North Crawford boys, junior Dominic Carstens was the first Trojan to finish the 3.1 mile course in a time of 20:19 and ended in 44th place. Next was Gavin Forkash in 65th in a time of 21:02. Liam O’Brien was next in 118th place in a time of 24:59 followed by Parker Frandrup in 120th in 25:39. Dylan Heisz rounded out the Trojan team in 122nd place in a time of 29:38.

North Crawford Cross Country Coach Mike Allbaugh was pretty excited after the meet.

“Helen looked very strong today and ran a perfectly strategic race,” Allbaugh said. “Coach (Liz) Bransky and I are very proud of her and look forward to seeing what she can do at the state championships. We are also proud of all of the runners who did great things this season. Even though the season is over, the positive thing is that we did not have any seniors on the team so we will be that much stronger next year.”