As the cross country season winds down, the North Crawford runners spent a cool morning in Muscoda on October 11 for the Riverdale Invitational. River Valley swept the meet by scoring 36 for the boys and 41 points for the girls and winning both.
On a foggy morning, the girls were set to run the first race of the day, but an unexpected change in the race schedule showed that the varsity boys were to compete in the opening race. Though the Trojans were more than an hour early for the first race, the boys were still investigating the course, when one of the Trojan girls alerted the coaches that the boys were about to begin the race. Panic arose and the boys were rounded up and headed to the starting line, only to hear the gun go off while they were still taking their sweatpants and sweatshirts off. The boys did not even have an opportunity to get on racing shoes.
Outstanding race
Despite the adversity, junior captain Jacob Bransky put on a stellar performance finishing in fifth place (despite a 20-second head start) in an outstanding time of 18:21.40. Bransky has been running well and could be a contender to advance to the state crosscountry meet held on Nov. 1 in Wisconsin Rapids.
The rest of the boys did not perform as well as Bransky and the late start and lack of a proper warm-up took its toll. Finishing next for North Crawford was junior Brady Allbaugh in 29th with a time of 21:30.7. Next was Dylan Ghormley in 38th in a time of 22:50.6 followed by freshman Cameron Steyer in 39th 23:05.4 and Trea Steele in 48th in a time of 26:29.1.
Zastrow takes first place
The girls raced next and junior Nina Zastrow did not let down North Crawford and finished in first place in the tough meet in a career best time of 20:31.6. Teammate captain Willa Dworschack also had a very good day and finished in fourth place in a career best time of 21:17.2. Both Zastrow and Dworschack stand a chance to make it to the state cross country meet held on Nov. 1 in Wisconsin Rapids.
Following the team leaders was teammate freshman Kylie Heisz who ended in 28th in a time of 25.25.2.
“I was disappointed that there was no conversation at the beginning of the meet that race events had been changed,” coach Mike Allbaugh said later. “The information that we received was that the girls were to race first and the boys second, this was not how the meet went and our athletes suffered trying to take sweats off and run down a field of runners that had already started. The girls performed well, as Zastrow and Dworschack set personal records this day.”
