From Coach Carstens:

Competing under the lights on Friday night used to just be for football players but not any longer as the Whippet cross county teams headed up for their 3rd trip to Wisconsin Dells and competed in the Nightfall Classic contested on the Spring Brook Golf Course. This race is held entirely under a lighted 2-looped course that is flat, fast and spectacular to see in person. The atmosphere is electric, the setting is perfect, and the weather couldn’t have been better. Forty degrees, calm winds, and that cool, crisp feeling runners love in the fall. It proved to be a perfect mix as nearly all the Whippets ran a new personal best and finished their regular season on a high note.

The boys’ program raced first and Gio Anello walked away with a medal in his hand after his 15th place finish. He did a really nice job digging down and grinding with the pack and ran 17:26. Aidan Coburn returned to the line up after an illness and fought his way to 36th in 18:02. Pack running is so fun to watch and three Whippets are really thriving in this situation. Freshman Cooper Hammond and Sophomores Manny Rodriguez and Will Hofman do it well. They finished in 55th, 56th, and 58th place overall. Their new personal best times are now 18:42. 18:43 and 18:46 for 5000 meters. Running a little under the weather was Senior Nick Kuzoff who finished as the team’s 6th runner in 69th in 19:08. Senior Dan Trost absolutely crushed his race and ran a lifetime best of 19:14 and finished in 80th. Jaden Salmieri again impressed by running a time of 19:28. Also competing and running their best time of the season were Peter Zimdars, Jack Mayer, Wesley Salverson, Justin Mitchell, Andy Vo, Aldo Rodriguez, Andrew Rollette, Evan Schepp, Mason West, and Michael Bigelow. There were only team scores for the varsity programs in this meet and Whitewater finished in 7th place out of 14th D2 schools in the same race.

The girls were ready to make some noise next and Nicole Tomomitsu certainly didn’t disappoint as she finished in fifth place overall running her fastest 5K dating back to last season. Her time of 20:13 and top five finish easily secured her a medal and some confidence as the championship portion of the season approaches. Hailey Prager and Crystal Chan finished tenths of a second apart, but they ran far different races. Hailey got out more aggressive with the large field and getting ahead before the first turns whereas Crystal went out a little more conservative but kept slaying her way through the field. It made for a thrilling finish and wound up just outside the medals in 24th and 25th place. They both ran 22:00 and ran their best times in the last two seasons. Trinity Nickels was the team’s fourth runner with a strong showing in 23:40, good enough for 66th. Jenna Lee ran her season best by over a minute to secure 86th in 24:34. Olive Coburn ran her best time of the season given the course variations the program races on. Sophie Walton, Jenny Villarreal, Mackenzie LaFlash, Sophie Wagner and Rosie Aschenbrener also ran very fast and dropped considerable amounts of time from their previous races. The varsity team placed 8th in D2.

Next up for the Whippets will be the RVC CC Championship on Thursday, October 11th hosted by Whitewater on the campus of UW-Whitewater. The race schedule is as follows:

3:30 p.m. Middle School Girls 3k

3:32 p.m. Middle School Boys 3K

4:10 p.m. Varsity Boys 5K

4:45 p.m. Varsity Girls 5K

5:20 p.m. JV Boys and Girls 5K