Port girls among the leaders of the pack

Some pack running among Port Washington High School’s top girl racers helped the Pirates to fourth place in a brutally competitive Homestead Highlander Invite last Friday at Tendick Park in Saukville.

The Pirates scored 109 points behind two larger schools and a powerhouse.

Defending state champion Shorewood won with 57 points “and they are better than they were last year,” Port coach Joe Adamak said.

Homestead had 69 points and Brookfield Central had 73 in the 12-team meet.

Pirate sophomore Braeya Thomas led the team by running the 5,000-meter course in 20 minutes, 57.8 seconds, good for eighth of 104 competitors.

Senior Mira Stimac wasn’t far behind in 10th in 21:08.2. Sophomore Abby Lotz was a 10th of a second back in 11th in 21:08.3.

“You notice right away the nice grouping up front,” Adamak said.

Sophomore Emma Kasza-James came in 18th in 21:50.7.

“Emma wasn’t too far back,” Adamak said.

Senior Emma Goodman was 27th in 22:36.

“Emma did well as fifth runner,” Adamak said.

“We will continue to work on closing gaps.”

The race was run in two sessions with six teams competing in each session to allow for social distancing. Beyond that, sets of two runners from each team started 30 seconds apart.

Adamak said he sent Stimac with Kasza-James in his first wave and Thomas and Lotz in the second.

While cool weather made conditions ideal for running, Adamak said, the course was different than when Port ran it the week before. The grass was cut and the ground was hard and dry as opposed to wet and soggy from rain.

“It was the same map but a totally different course,” he said.

Port’s sixth and seventh runners still finished near the top third of the race, though their totals didn’t count toward the team score. Freshman Ella Tatem came in 35th in 23:35.3 and junior Clare Woods was 36th in 23:36.6.

The Ozaukee High School girls took sixth place with 186 points.

Senior Grace Tinder led the way in 33rd place in 22:06.9. Freshman Clara McKee wasn’t far behind in 36th in 22:11.4.

Freshman Meredith Clark was 42nd in 22:28.3 and freshman Rebecca Hoffmann was 43rd in 22:29.2. Sophie Uhlenberg was 49th in 22:41.9.

The Warriors’ sixth runner was Allsion Clark, who was 55th in 23:05.9. Kelley Large was 81st in 24:11.6.

“The Ozaukee girls continue to work on staying aggressive and did a great job of pushing each other to a great performance,” coach Andrew Pfeuffer said.

The Grafton High School’s girls came in seventh with 196 points.

Freshman Ava McLaughlin was 27th in 21:47.4. Freshmen Evelyn Schmit was 37th in 22:16.3.

Senior Morgan Ruona was 40th in 22:26.5. Junior Rachel Swenson was 57th in 23:07.4, and freshman Josie Gehrke was 58th in 23:07.8.

Maddy Wille was the Blackhawks’ sixth runner in 78th place in 24:03.8.

McLaughlin said it helped running at Tendick for the second week in a row.

“I really knew the course and this time I knew when to pick up the pace,” she said.

Ruona said the 30-second intervals between starts made pack running a challenge.

“We are used to running as a team a little bit more so we can keep our eyes on our teammates and kind of push to find them,” she said. “With the staggered start that’s kind of hard to do but I think we made the best of it and even used that to push a little bit more and try to catch up.”

Co-coach Celia Shaughnessy said McLaughlin, Schmit and Gehrke ran great races and Ruona had “one of her strongest races.”

Baker continues to shine for Grafton

In the boys’ race, Grafton senior Nathan Baker took fifth place of 136 runners in the meet in 17:00.3, one week after taking third in a scrimmage at Tendick.

The Black Hawks scored 308 points and came in 11th of 14 teams. They were missing two of their top runners, Shaughnessy said.

Junior Lance Greicar was 91st in 19:23.4. Sophomore Gabe Mietkowski was 94th in 19:32.2. Senior Nathan Woolf was 104th in 19:53.4 Junior Maddox Durst was 111th n 20:04.6.

Senior Andrew Rose was the sixth runner and came in 114th in 20:11.8.

Brookfield East won the invite with 50 points. Wisconsin Lutheran had 105, Homestead had 114 and Shorewood had 115.

The Port boys scored 316 points and took 12th place.

“We had a couple of guys have off days and we are not a deep enough team at this point to overcome that,” coach Mark Pasten said.

The Pirates took fifth of seven teams in its session.

“I was encouraged by the fact that they moved up throughout the race. Although they were in seventh place as a team at the second mile mark, they were able to move up to fifth place over the last mile,” Pasten said.

Port’s top-five runners all finished better in the third mile than where they were after the first mile in their session.

Mason Raasch went from 19th to 13th and took 40th overall in 18:17.6.

Nate Meeks went from 30th to 24th and finished 63rd in 18:46.1.

“Mason has been doing a good job of stepping up as our top runner this season both at meets and in practice. He was able to take 19 seconds off his time from last week on the same course,” Pasten said.

“Nate was our second runner for the second week in a row. He did a nice job of moving up five places during the second mile.”

Gabe Pasten went from 35th to 28th and was 76th overall in 19:06.2.

Austin Rinke went from 38th to 36th and finished 100th in 19:38.7.

“Gabe was able to move up five places in the third mile and made a big difference in our overall team standing,” coach Pasten said.

 “Austin was having an off day. He did a good job of fighting through that and was able to pass a couple of runners from the other teams of the last two miles.”

Angelo Feciskonin went from 41st to 37th and finished 101st overall in 19:44.6.

Port’s sixth runner, Jacob Meier, was 132nd in 21:19.2.

“Angelo was competing for the first time this season and made a large impact on our teams standing. With Jake having an off day, Angelo was a real difference maker for the team,” Pasten said.

Ozaukee’s boys came in 13th with 339 points. Five of the seven runners had personal records or season bests, Pfeuffer said.

All of the teams the Warriors competed against were Division 1 schools. Ozaukee competes in Division 3.

Junior Calvin McKee was 57th in 18:39.6. Sophomore Owen Klaus was 79th in 19:14.2. Junior Tyler Mueller was 88th in 19:21.5. Senior Matt Baldwin was 93rd in 19:27.5. Freshman Aaron Nehls was 103rd in 19:52.9.

Sophomore Chase Miller was the team’s sixth runner and came in 129th in 21:02. Riley Borchardt was the seventh runner and finished 133rd in 21:21.8.

The Pirates run in an invite at Hon-E-Kor Golf Course in Kewaskum on Thursday.

Ozaukee hosts a meet Thursday on its school campus.

Grafton’s runs at Tendick Park again on Saturday.