Dogies cruise Mallo course

Sonja Karp

NLJ Sports Editor

The Dogie Cross Country season got under way at the annual Mallo meet last weekend. Usually scheduled for the first Friday of the season, this year the meet got pushed back to Saturday — which reduced the number of teams that could attend by two — but head coach Kathy Beehler was still pleased with how the day turned out and how her teams performed.

“It was hot at the meet this year, which is uncharacteristic for Mallo. I don’t remember Mallo ever being hot, so that was strange and that may have affected the times for the kids,” Beehler explained. “But we still got a lot of compliments from teams who said this is their favorite course. The fact is, if you can get through this course, you can get through any course.”

Only the men’s team posted a team score, where they finished second to Custer. However, three Dogies finished in the top 10, led by Landen Hill who was third, Archer Ohnstad who was sixth, and Caden Esposito who was 10th. 

Hill is just a freshman, so finishing so well in his first varsity meet was definitely impressive. Ohnstad also had a good race, and then senior Esposito made a statement by making the top 10 after not running cross country since seventh or eighth grade. 

“Landon did great just jumping in there as a freshman,” Beehler said. “Then it was kind of fun because Caden told me at the end that he still had more in the tank. So, he realized that the next time he competes, he can go out and run a little harder.”

Lane Carter has been running all summer long and it showed, given he was the Dogies’ fourth runner, while Caleb Hoover was the fifth Dogie across the line for the varsity team. 

“It was super hot up there, and it is the hardest course we’ll run this year, but it was a pretty good day,” Hoover said. “We aren’t running as tightly as we’d like, so we are a little spread out right now, but we’re hoping to tighten things up in the next couple of weeks.”

For the ladies, Aspen Bloom was the top finisher as she crossed the line in second place. Christine Swentesky was sixth, while Hollie Swentesky finished 11th in the varsity division. Liliana Cunningham won the JV division. 

“It was great to have a girl’s team, even though I didn’t run them all as varsity runners,” Beehler said. “Aspen had a good race, and Christina had a great race and a really good time for her after struggling with injuries last season. I thought they ran well and competed well.”

This week, the Dogies will head to Spearfish on Friday with the girls’ varsity starting at 10 a.m. This course is the “easiest” one of the season, so Beehler expects to see some good times this weekend.

“We have a lot of work to do, mostly in tightening up our runners to run more in a pack,” Beehler said. “But they’ve got a lot of potential and they are really good at learning from their races and will work hard on fixing those things.”