Badger boys cross country wins 6th straight conference title, girls place 3rd

The Badger Boys Cross Country team's unbelievable run of success (no pun intended) continued Thursday Oct. 17, winning their sixth consecutive Southern Lakes Conference Championship, while the Badger girls placed third overall as a team.

The Badger boys led the way with 47 points, narrowly scraping Westosha Central who finished in second place with 54. The Badger girls finished collectively with 69 points behind Union Grove with 32 in first place and Westosha Central in second with 67.

Leading the way for the Badger varsity squad was Anderson Greenberg who finished in second place with a ridiculous time of 17:21.60.

However, Greenberg was one of three Badgers who finished within the 17-minute mark. Eli VanDeBerg came in sixth with a time of 17:43.20 and Will Larkin was right behind him in seventh with a time of 17:50.30.

Cristan Rodriguez finished 15th (18:30.50), Sam Reed in 17th (18:35.40), Caden Ryan in 19th (18:43.40), and Isaac Kosowski rounded out the top 20 for the Badgers in the 20th spot (18:44.20). Thomas Hiffman rattled off at a time of 19:00.80 and finished in 26th place.

"I could not be prouder of the boys for multiple reasons," Badger head boys cross country coach Jake Kiefer said. "They executed our plan. It gets scary mid-race because we knew other guys were going to go out really hard. The message to our guys was to go out really strong and controlled. We knew going into this that every guy we could get was going to matter, and I'm so proud of them. They executed to perfection, and it was the ultimate team win."

Team scores

No Badger girl runner had a better race than Maelynn Smith. She took the top spot and finished first once again with a time of 19:35.00. Brooklyn Flies also earned a spot in the top 10 in sixth place with a time of 20:44.20.

Kennedy Monge placed 17th with a time of 21:59.00, and three members of the team (Jasmine Meneces, Elizabeth Melchi, Sophie Solverson) were the definition of "pack runners."

Meneces placed 22nd (22:34.10), Melchi in 23rd (22:40.21), and Solverson came in 24th (22:41.70).

The varsity girls for Badger rounded out the Conference race with a 26th place finish by Natalea Brown (23:00.20) and 30th place finish by Bre'Anna Holton (23:05.50).

"The race went really well," Badger head girls cross country coach Stephani Reynolds said. "Most of the girls improved their times, and I thought they all came out and competed well. I'm happy with the results. We lost to Westosha Central by two points and we have been going back and forth with them all year. But the girls ran their best races, and you can't be mad at that."