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Extra meters challenge NL girls

Just when New London’s female cross country competitors get used to their weekly two-and-a-half-mile test, the middle of the season throws a curveball at them.

Hortonville’s invite at Lyon’s Park in Greenville last weekend tacked on another kilometer (roughly half a mile) to the JV and varsity girls’ races. Such an event is unusual to witness here – Wisconsin is one of few states across the country that has not bumped the high school girls’ 4K up to a 5K. The familiar motto “3.1 For Everyone” sprawled across the Polar Bear Invite t-shirts showed that some programs aspire to see their girls running five kilometers at every meet someday.

When an athlete runs an atypical distance, she has two options: Slow down to conserve energy for the extra meters or hold her typical pace longer.

“I slowed my pace down from the start,” JV sophomore Victoria Philippon said. She was dreading her first 5K and strategized beforehand in order to keep her race quick.

Varsity junior Anna Staudenmaier, on the other hand, pushed her usual 4K pace for an extra kilometer. “It’s going to be harder than normal, but I still have to run a strong race,” Staudenmaier said was her initial thought.

With only one 5K this season, the girls had just the results of two 5K’s last season to top time-wise, making individually competing against the clock difficult. “The girls could just look at it as a tempo run workout,” coach Ron DuVernay said. He also told his female athletes to see how many boys’ 5K times they could top.

Teamwork was not affected by the damper on individual competition. The girls finished second out of eight teams, led by Annalise Schroeder and Macy Egan with second- and third-place finishes, respectively. The boys finished fourth out of seven, led by Michael Heise, sixth, and Ian Wetzel, 18th.

New London competes in Pulaski at the Polka Grounds this Thursday.

JV Boys 5K (of 88 runners)

33 Andrew Moser – 20:57

38 Brandon Stibb – 21:11

39 Alex Elliott – 21:15

42 Beau Briner – 21:27

46 Luke Listle – 21:54

48 Dan Bessette 22:15

52 Drew Phillips 22:34

59 Brad Binder – 23:10

Varsity Boys 5K (of 54 runners)

6 Michael Heise – 17:37

18 Ian Wetzel – 18:43

26 Kevin Urban – 19:02

28 Andrew Philippon – 19:11

35 Andrew Schlais – 19:34

37 Dan Bosquez – 19:50

38 Chris Steingraber – 19:54

JV Girls 5K (of 73 runners)

13 Sami Christian – 24:03

17 Coral Managan – 24:30

33 Victoria Philippon – 25:50

37 Emilee Kerscher – 26:18

40 Hannah Cross – 26:31

64 Victoria Zahn – 29:27

Varsity Girls 5K (of 60 runners)

2 Annalise Schroeder – 20:42

3 Macy Egan – 20:52

16 Brenna Heise – 22:11

17 Anna Staudenmaier – 22:19

21 Amber Pethke – 22:39

28 Kara Hoier – 22:58

30 Madison Cooley – 23:03

34 Cassandra Philippon – 23:10

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