Girls team packs in meaningful runs
Gehring paces lady Mustangs
By Phil English
The goals were modest for the Northside girls cross country team when it came to the Horlick Rebel Invitational Saturday in Kenosha, Wis. The Mustangs wanted to build a pack and point to the end of the season. Mission accomplished.
The Northside girls took 20th place in the 23-team field on the Wayne E. Dannehl Cross Country National Course at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
The top five runners finished in a tight pack at 95th, 99th, 100th, 106th and 108th. That gave the girls a reason to be optimistic for bigger meets later this fall.
“I think as a team we did a really good job,” said junior Karlyn Gehring, Northside’s top finisher at 18:02.2 over the 2.5-mile course. “I was able to pace with the team really well. That’s something I didn’t do so well last year. Our team was close together the entire time, pushing each other. I’m not sure I would have been able to finish without them.”
Gehring was followed in the chute by junior Maggie Ivanova (18:07.3), freshman Taylor Provax (18:07.6), junior Su Yang (18:19.1) and seniors Bessie Nolan (18:22.8) and Yesenia Valdez (18:24.5). Junior Dava Batjargal followed in 112th (18:25.5) while senior Merita Bushi finished 140th (19:55.8).
For Ivanova, a first-year cross country runner, the meet accomplished many goals.
“I think since this is only the second meet of the year we were using this for a practice run to help us prepare for our later meets,” she said. “I was expecting it to be hard because of all the hills and all the people here. But I think we did a lot better than I’d hoped.”
