The Becker boys cross country team traveled to Liberty Elementary in Big Lake Tuesday to compete in the Mississippi 8 Conference Championship meet on one of the warmer days (72º) of Conference history.
With 27 points, the Bulldogs captured the conference championship by 36 points over Monticello.
Liberty Elementary was the site of the first race of the season for the Bulldogs back in August and this was also the site of the final race of the season for many of the Bulldogs as only nine runners were able to be rostered for the Section 5AA meet Thurs., Oct. 28.
Last year, the Bulldogs junior high team took second place in the conference by just one point, so this year’s team approached the day with plans to capture the championship. The seventh grade Bulldogs — Weston Denne (13:48), Mavrick Pink (14:49), and Carson Schuster (14:53) — all finished in the top 30 for the race finishing 21st, 28th and 30th, which interestingly had them as the fifth, ninth and 10th seventh graders to cross the line in the race.
There were some big performances from eighth graders which significantly impacted the team scores. Eighth grader Jacob Kurhajetz (13:23) had a strong race which was a PR for the distance and yielded a 12th place finish. Mason Tschida (12:53) finished ninth with another hard fought race while Parker Spindler (11:19), Evan Hubbard (11:29) Tanner Felton (11:46) captured the first, second, and third spots.
“It was a blast getting to see the whole group of Bulldog junior high runners aggressively pursuing their team goal,” said Head Coach Dustin Weege. “We are proud of the gains that each of these guys made and look forward to seeing them continue to develop.”
The next boys race saw just five Bulldogs in it as four others were away for the day. The five Bulldogs raced hard and saw three PRs with two others that were close. Co-captain Ryan Nelson (20:40) led the crew and achieved a stellar 43 second PR to cap off his senior season with his first sub-21 5k race.
“He did such a nice job in that race and throughout the season,” said Weege. “Ryan is a great leader with strong commitments to teammates, family, and our country. I have no doubt that Ryan will do wonderful things in this world as he continues to venture forward running the race with endurance.”
Next was Noah Bloch (21:17), as he bettered his best time by 21 seconds.
“Noah made nice gains during his first season running cross country as he improved by over three minutes from the same course run in August,” said Becker’s head coach.
Jonathan Drury (22:28) was about a minute faster than his August time despite battling with a shoelace that came undone early in the race. Denlan Harmoning (24:27) was just seven seconds from his PR as he raced hard to finish in a good spot. His time was three minutes, 18 seconds faster than his August performance.
Thomas Cota earned another PR for the season after overcoming a number of challenges over the past year.
“At the beginning of the season, we weren’t quite sure how it would go for Thomas as simply finishing the race was the goal,” said Weege. “Here we are now celebrating his seventh consecutive PR with over 11minutes of improvement on the season.”
Eight varsity Bulldogs venturing from the start line to the finish with some strong runners. The teams from Big Lake and Monticello are ranked second and fourth in the state and they captured the top team spots for the conference with tight competition while the battle for third saw Cambridge-Isanti edging the Bulldogs by 12. The Bulldogs had two runners — Tyson Ricker and Mason Becker — earn All-Conference finishes and an Honorable-Mention for Jase Tobako. Ricker and Mason were both within three seconds of the career best times as they finished fourth and 10th in the race. Ricker’s time of 16:50 has him in an elite class of Bulldogs as there is a short list of sub-17 Bulldogs, the latest of which was Jordan Gruenes in the 2018 state meet.
Tobako finished 18th with his time of 18:18 which was over a minute faster than his race in August on the same course. In the #4 spot for the Bulldogs was Caleb Reckelberg (19:30) as he PR’d by 11 seconds. Alex Kinney was next as he had another good six second PR race and narrowly missed breaking the 20 minute mark.
“Alex has certainly been a key contributor on the team as he’s maintained that #5 spot for much of the season which can certainly be a challenge for a ninth grader to hold.” Weege said.
Kinney was the third freshmen to cross the finish line in the race.
“As he continues to develop and put in the work, I suspect there could be some significant gains to come for him and his fellow 9th grade teammates, which continues to excite us.” Weege said.
Junior Ryan Boecker held the next position with 20:23 while ninth graders Alex Schermer (20:56) and Jacob Peterson (21:08) finished the Bulldog Team.
“I was certainly pleased with how our young Bulldog team performed for the day,” said Weege. “There was a lot of excitement amongst our runners and it was a good test for us as we prep for the Section 5aa meet on the 28th. We will see several of the same teams again when we host the state qualifier on the Local 9 of Pebble Creek.”
