Hale XC 2024

Hale Finishes as 13th best team in the State

The beautiful world of cross country, the best sport in the world.  Lining up every week with a new opportunity to compete.  Getting the opportunity to finish your season with the team at the State Meet is always special and the team took full advantage of the opportunity this past Saturday.  Racing aggressive and with no limits, the team ran to a strong 13th place finish in the stacked Division 1 field!  

​Out of the gates strong, the team found itself in 9th place at the mile mark.  We knew the challenges ahead on the course, but putting ourselves in the mix allowed us to compete and not be too late to try and move up, knowing the race would be fast given the quality field and strength in returning teams.  Kai Bruner got out strong once again, with his teammate Elijah Sayeg right behind putting himself in position to have his career best high school race at the best time.  Ethan Plier put himself in perfect position early as our third scorer, with John Gruichich just off his pace.  Koda Bruner and Joseph Ventura found each other together at the mile, while freshman Caleb Jensen had a fantastic debut first mile of his state course debut.

​Places are tight at state, with 2 seconds deciding 10 places in many spots.  Finishing as our low scorer in his final cross country race, Elijah secured 19 points with a personal best time to boot.  After the quick start, Kai battled well to keep his team score low and finish as the 2nd scorer.  Many a men have gone out too aggressive the first 800 and fallen very far out of the race, but Kai showed his toughness to keep himself as a solid scorer.  Ethan ran a strong and consistent race, his best time as well finishing just behind Kai as our 3rd scorer.   This came as no surprise, as Ethan has been Mr. Consistent week in and week out, being one of our most reliable low scorers.  A week after his big sectionals performance, John had a bit more of a battle Saturday but fought to finish strong as our 4th scorer.  He helped the team put 4 men in front of KM after putting just 3 ahead of them a week prior.  Koda came in shortly after and helped the team secure a 13th place finish, ahead of 9th ranked Neenah and 14th ranked Menomonie!  The men battled for a top 10 spot and competed great, finishing just behind Shorewood and Verona in a close team battle.  Some crazy close scores from 3rd through 9th place as well this year, with just seconds separating team scores!

Also part of our 4 returners that got to race Saturday,  Joseph finished strong to a 17:45 debut on the Ridges course, while Caleb ran a personal best and beat guys that had beaten him earlier in the season!  Joseph beat 8 teams number 6 runner and Caleb beat 6 teams number 7 man as a freshman!  The experience of a state meet can really catapult a runner and with action and belief, anything is possible!  No limits.

The 13th place finish was the program's highest finish since 2012 where the team took 11th.  If looking at the season in terms of wins/losses, the team finished 118 - 23.  (118 wins and 23 losses).  The team won sectionals for the first time since 2004.  The team won two other invitationals and finished in the top 4 or higher in every other meet this year.  

For returning athletes, the tradition to leave the program in a better place now belongs with you!  This includes the 4 that competed this past week, and the other returners that have a great opportunity to step into scoring roles!  The growth of our current junior and senior crew from their freshmen years has been awesome to watch and is the fun part of this sport.  Opportunity is available for those that want it!  Have no limits, and go race fast in track this spring!

A big congrats to our 3 seniors who finished with phenomenal races at sectionals and state.  Congrats to Brody and Damien for finishing their high school cross country careers with huge races the Thursday before sectionals to pump up the guys to race great two days later.  The ride that is cross country and sports in general provides ups and downs, and the story for Nate's senior XC season didn't play out as anyone wanted, but with struggle there is growth and we are excited to see a healthy and fast Nate Hutter crush it on the track this spring!


2024 Results Workbook

Congrats to our teammate chosen athletes of the meet and B&G winners this fall!

Palmyra - Kai Bruner (Chosen by Elijah Sayeg).  B&G - Joseph Ventura
Betz - Henry Roemer.    B&G Nate Siepe-Pick, Payson Vahovick
Druckrey - Ethan Plier
Muskego - Iker Robles.  B&G Preston Plier, Caleb Jensen
Laser - Caleb Jensen.  B&G Brody Kaminski
Viking - Damien Sheridan.  B&G Elijah Sayeg, Ethan Muelrath
GMC - Evan May.  B&G Koda Bruner, U.P. Nate Hutter
JV State - B&G Antonio Lizalde Vega, U.P. Brody Kaminski
Sectionals - John Gruichich
​State - Congrats to the team for a great 13th place showing at the 2024 State Meet! 

Awards Night

An email reminder was sent on awards.  We are looking forward to seeing everyone.  More than anything, this is a night of being together and sharing stories from the season.  
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