Dogies stumble in Sturgis

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
A week following the Rapid City meet where several runners made great improvements in their times, the Dogie and Lady Dogie cross country teams struggled to repeat that performance in Sturgis last Friday. 
“We didn’t have a lot of individual standout performances but Jacob Rhoades PR’d again for the third week in a row,” head coach Kathy Beehler stated. “It wasn’t by a lot, but when you consider that Sturgis is a more challenging course than Rapid, it speaks well for the progress he is making.” 
In addition to Rhoades, Carson Bock also improved from Rapid by dropping two seconds off his time. 
The men also performed well as a team by remaining bunched up to help their overall score. Bock was the lead Dogie runner to cross the finish line in 25th place, while Zach Purviance, Bridger Alishouse and Avery Chick finished 41st, 46th and 48th respectively. The team’s final scoring runner, Rhoades was shortly behind Chick in 55th place. 
The pack running of the 2nd through 5th Dogies helped the team get the better of Belle Fourche, Spearfish and Hill City on the day.  
“As a team, we are kind of in the money,” Beehler admitted. “We finished just behind Sturgis so if you take the big schools out, we’re running with schools our size without our top runner.”
Another big positive from the meet in Sturgis is that all of the Lady Dogies were on the course which hasn’t happened often this season. This week, Beehler plans to enter all five of the girls in the varsity race so they will be running as a team for the first time this year. 
“We finally have five girls who will be competing so I’m excited to see everyone running and I feel confident that everyone will run well,” she predicted. “We’ve started our taper now so everyone should be in good shape to do good things in Gillette.”
The Dogies will compete in Gillette on Friday in their last regular meet of the season, then will be setting their sights on Conference in Douglas. 
Tristan Troftgruben, the Dogies leading runner, is slated to compete this Friday. The men’s leading runner has been sidelined the last couple of weeks with a nagging injury that Beehler is cautiously optimistic has been resolved. The plan is to run him in Gillette with the very real option of backing off or dropping out should the issue flare up in the slightest.
“The last thing we want to do is push him too hard this weekend, and knock him out of the running for conference and state,” Beehler declared. “We’ve made it clear to him that he needs to take care of himself and make sure he makes it to the postseason in good shape.”
With a winter storm watch in effect for Wednesday and Thursday, the Dogies can expect conditions to be cold and adverse in Gillette so that is another challenge the team will face this weekend.