The Becker Bulldog boys cross country team competed in the Big Lake Invitational meet last week. The meet is affectionately known as the Battle at Liberty since it is held at Liberty Elementary school. Twenty Bulldog runners took part in the meet and were arranged with a 5-10-5 spread between the races.
Junior High
Becker’s five junior high runners started off the day racing with some great performances as the team captured the win to get back to a streak that they held last season.
It was a battle for the top three spots in the race as Parker Spindler, Evan Hubbard and Tanner Felton all finished within eight seconds of each other to capture the top spots in the 2000m race. Newcomers Weston Denne and Jacob Kurhajetz completed the race with nice runs as the team won the competition with 47 points.
JV Team
The JV race saw a number of first time cross country 5kers for the Bulldogs as many of the nearly-undefeated junior high runners from last season moved to the high school level while some newcomers experienced the cross country racing world as well.
Alex Kinney (22:27), Jacob Peterson (22:39), Alex Schermer (22:43), and Jonathon Drury (23:14) pushed each other along in the congested race as they each raced in this new distance. Eighth grader Mason Tschida also triedt his hand in the 5k JV race with a number of other teammates, showing good progress and managing to be one of the scoring five on the JV team with his time of 23:39.
Following Tschida came Noah Bloch with Landon Lahr guiding him through the first race. Denlan Harmoning, Aiden Frommelt and Thomas Cota wrapped up the JV Bulldogs with PRs (Personal Records) in their first cross country 5ks.
Varsity Team
On the Varsity side, five runners took to the line and accomplished a fourth place team finish as they did a quick measure with some conference and section competitors. The race started out quickly with most running a sub-minute mile pace.
The first half of the race was led by co-captain Tyson Ricker (junior) as he continues his quick paces from last Spring/Summer. Ricker had competed in the state track and field meet this past June for the 1600m race and has returned to competition this Fall with some significant goals. For the day, Ricker crossed the finish line in fourth place with all top four running under 18 minutes for the 3.1mile race.
The next Bulldog to finish was Mason Becker, who crossed in 14th place with a time of 18:53. Then came Jase Tobako in at 19:23, which was almost a minute faster than his first time last year. Caleb Reckelberg is healthy again this season and had a decent start with 20:22. Co-captain Ryan Boecker crossed at 21:09.
“I felt decent with the start that we’ve had here as it gave us a number of things to talk about and continue to develop as we seek to run with endurance throughout the season,” said Becker Head Coach Dustin Weege. “I’m confident we will continue to improve as this group of runners has been showing some nice work ethic already.”
The experienced team of five runners had a nice start to the racing season and will certainly be looking to continue to improve so that they can have some stellar performances when they host the Section 5AA meet in Becker on Oct. 28.
By the time of this publication, the Bulldogs competed at the Rockford Rocket Invite, which was held Thursday. The Bulldogs are looking forward to continuing to race and improve while also welcoming back co-captain Ryan Nelson and more runners.
