Dogies show up at conference meet

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
Post season competition got underway last Friday as the Newcastle Dogie and Lady Dogie Cross Country teams competed in Douglas at the 3A East Regional meet.
After several weeks of not having enough runners to make a team, the Lady Dogies were able to put all five in the race, while the men put their top seven runners to the test.
It was a test the Dogies were prepared to take.
Going into the meet, head coach Kathy Beehler knew the team to beat would be Worland. Though Newcastle wasn’t able to get past the powerhouse Warrior team, a great effort by all gave them the two point advantage they needed to take second place over Douglas.
“The boys all had a really good race and I am just so proud of all of them,” Beehler beamed. “They all jumped in and ran right where they were supposed to be, or better so that was awesome.”
Dylan Talley returned after an injury hiatus for the Dogies and didn’t seem to lose pace during his recovery time. In the beginning of the year, he was ranked second, but after not running for several weeks, his early season time dropped him to seventh. However, he proved he had not fallen that far behind the pack by finishing in fourth place overall.
PJ Martin enjoyed a ninth place ranking going in, and he got eighth, so improved his overall finish as well.
Tristan Troftgruben claimed 11th place, Avery Chick was 18th, Carson Bock finished in 22nd, Peyton Purviance in 26th and his brother Zach closed it out for the Dogies in 28th place.
“Peyton ran so well and really jumped in and brought it home for the team. He just keeps getting better and better every race,” Beehler exclaimed. “Carson was out two weeks and he came back right where he was supposed to be so he didn’t miss a beat. I am just so proud of how everyone ran.”
The only thing to mar the day for the Dogies involved a snafu with scoring. Douglas had their computer system go down so they had to score the meet by hand. As they announced the top three teams, Newcastle was not among those named. Having kept score herself, Beehler knew the findings were incorrect so pressed officials to take another look at the results.
Unfortunately, by the time the mistake was found, the opportunity to celebrate their second-place finish was past.
“When the scores were announced, Rawlins was called as third, Douglas as second and Worland as first. I knew we were second so as we watched them get their plaques and take pictures and celebrate, I felt so bad for the kids,” Beehler frowned. “I pushed a little for them to refigure the results and it turned out they had left PJ, who was our second runner, out of our score and had ended up taking our sixth runner which was a swing of 20 points. The kids were devastated until we got the call that they had changed the results.”
Being able to put together a team for the conference meet was a huge positive for the Lady Dogies. Though they finished in seventh place overall, Beehler was happy with the way the ladies ran and admitted that it was nice to have a team after not having had one in several weeks.
“I thought the girls ran really well and they were bunched together well and pushed each other, so that was great,” she nodded. “In comparing time differentials between this week and last, the girls were right up there with the boys in how they performed so they did what they needed to do.”
Alaina Laurence was the first Lady Dogie across the finish line, in the 33rd position. She was followed closely by Lara Lopez in 35th, Hailey McGuire in 37th, Shelby Stith in 39th and Avery Alicehouse in 47th.
“Our top three runners were within 30 seconds of each other, and Shelby was less than a minute behind Alaina so that says very good things,” Beehler smiled. “Avery is doing the best she can do with the continuing injury she’s been suffering this season so I’m so proud of how she has powered through for her team.”
Both teams will wrap up their 2018 season this Saturday at the State Meet in Sheridan. The weather is looking as though it will cooperate and the course is relatively flat which could mean the possibility of some good times on the day.
Though Beehler is confident her runners will perform well, she also recognized that taking home hardware from the meet will be a tall order.
“The west side is pretty tough with Star Valley, Jackson and Cody remaining in 3A in cross country rather than moving to 4A like they have in basketball and volleyball,” she sighed. “Star Valley will win and Jackson will take second, so we will just have to see what we can do from there. We will go down and run the best we can and we are hoping for some personal bests, and anything can happen at state, so we are going to give it our best shot.”