Tuesday’s dual meet between the Columbus North and Columbus East cross-country teams at Ceraland Park helped kickstart rivalry week for the city schools. Even though the Bull Dogs swept the boys and girls races 15-50, the meet was a lot more than just what shows up on the final team scores.
“It’s always a good time when we can race and join all of the other fall programs,” North boys coach Danny Fisher said. “It’s good to race this week, and it’s always fun to race against competition from the same town, but also your friends and family. We all grew up together here and just went to different schools. It’s good, friendly competition.”
In the girls race for the ninth-ranked Bull Dogs, Mackenzie Barnett and Olivia Morlok were racing together for most of the 5,000-meter (3.1-mile) race, but Barnett had one final burst to the finish line to win in 19 minutes, 54 seconds to Morlok’s 19:59.
“I’m pretty happy with my 19:54 today,” Barnett said. “I think it’ll drop more throughout the season, but it is a good starting place for me so far.”
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
North’s Brianna Newell finished in 20:23. Lily Baker took fourth in 20:35, followed by Jessica Meza in fifth (20:41), Ellen White sixth (20:51), Kennedy Kerber seventh (21:26), Abby Jacobi eighth (21:32), Aric Tong ninth (21:37), Katherine Rumsey 10th (21:38), Sydney Morlok 11th (21:55) and Alyssa Green 12th (22:07).
“Our first look today was really good for us. The course is a little bit slow with the rain and some of the mud back there in the woods,” North girls coach Rick Sluder said. “We’re less worried about time than how we competed. We had a really big string there, and whenever you can have that many girls in a row feels good for us. That was our goal coming in was to pack up and have a big group out front.”
For the Olympians, Olivia Linnemann finished 13th in 22:28. Laurel Knight was 14th (22:47), Chloe Krueger 15th (22:48), Olivia Shoaf 21st (23:56) and Jordan Spurgeon 22nd (23:57).
“We were a little bit off today, but in general, we were kind of where I thought we would be at this point in the season,” East girls coach Jesse Shoaf said. “I liked where our top three were racing today together, then our next three were right there together, as well. I liked their effort in that part of it. We just need to push that last couple runners in that top five, and I think we’ll have a competitive team all year.”
In the boys race, seventh-ranked North raced mostly in a pack together, but junior Gabe Wills stayed ahead of the big pack of Bull Dogs behind him to win the race in 17:33.
“I feel like I’ve been really improving this past season,” Wills said. “North is really getting better as a team, and we are all working really hard to push each other and really growing as a team this year.”
Austin Pulkowski finished second in 17:47. Matt Newell was third (17:49.26), Andy Stohr fourth (17:49.54), Collin Pruitt fifth (17:49.76), Reese Kilbarger-Stumpff sixth (17:50.00), Evan Carr seventh (17:50.23), Jacob Strietelmeier eighth (17:50.46), Carson Littrell ninth (18:02), Clayton Guthrie 10th (18:07) and Will Kiel 11th (18:08).
“It’s a big confidence boost for (Wills) today. He ran tough. He’s plateaued the past couple years, so it was good to see him have a breakout race today and run up front,” Fisher said. “We were being conservative on some of the guys. Some might have been getting sick, but nothing major, just minor colds and low-grade fevers. We wanted to do our job and win the race, but do it spending the least amount of energy so they don’t bury themselves in the well too much. Hopefully, we get healthy and go in our invite race after Labor Day 100 percent and full-throttle into that.”
For East, Nick Walter finished 12th in 18:34. Tyler Hertle was 19th (19:18), Ryan Sadtler 22nd (19:47), Matthew Novreske 24th (20:30) and Casey Bartholomew 26th (20:59).
“Our guys had a good, strong effort as they were going,” East boys coach Ryan Burke said. “It’s still early in the season, and I think we still have some conditioning that we are working on, where those starts that those guys had, they will be able to hold them longer as the season goes on. I’m happy with the effort. It’s always a challenge to come out and run against North with the caliber team that they are. Just to come out and run with a strong effort was what we were looking for, and I think that’s what we did today.”
