Dogies whip the Wildcats

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Custer meet is always one the Dogie and Lady Dogie Cross Country teams gear up for each year, because the South Dakota team is a litmus test to see where the Newcastle athletes stand at this point in the season.
According to head coach Kathy Beehler, the Wildcats look good to finish in the top spots in the state this year, so her team’s goal is always to beat the runners in purple and gold. 
Last Thursday, the men did just that. Not only did the Dogies finish two places higher as a team, they did it decisively by 31 points. 
However, a new rival may be in the making with Sturgis, as the Dogies and the Scoopers have been trading spots over the last three weeks. Unfortunately, Sturgis is now one up as they claimed first place honors by a mere five points over Newcastle.
“We got the better of Custer which is always a good thing,” Beehler laughed. “But we did lose to Sturgis so that was a little disappointing.”
However, Beehler found a silver lining in that loss because she discovered that the motivation the Sturgis coaches used to inspire their runners was a promise that if they beat Newcastle, they would get a day off of practice.
“They also had Homecoming last week, so they really didn’t want to have a morning practice on Friday,” Beehler explained. “It felt good to know that we’re their team to beat, and we took that as a real compliment.”
The Dogies’ top four finishers — Tristan Troftgruben (7th), Zach Purviance (11th), Carson Bock (13th) and Avery Chick (14th) — finished ahead of Sturgis’ fourth runner. However, the Scoopers’ fifth scorer and their two pushers got the better of Newcastle’s fifth through seventh runners which gave them five points more.
Jacob Rhoades was the team’s fifth finisher and he was followed by Mathew Drake, Collin Dudzinski and Bridger Alishouse.
Custer’s course is the most challenging course the Dogies have taken on since their first meet of the season at Mallo. As such, most runners were slightly over their times from their most recent meet in Belle. However, Rhoades, Conrad Prell and Max Makousky ran faster times on Thursday.
“Jacob had a great meet,” Beehler began. “Between the Belle and Custer courses, we know that Custer is a little tougher. Because of that, we usually see some slower times — like 35-40 seconds — however Jacob cut his time by 14 seconds so that was great to see.”
Once again, the Lady Dogies only had three suited up to run in Custer. Hailey McGuire was the team’s only varsity entrant and she finished in ninth place. Alaina Laurence and Avery Alishouse ran in the junior varsity division and finished 25th and 30th, respectively.
“All of the girls ran really well,” Beehler nodded. “Hailey is just really consistent and it was great to see Alaina and Avery fighting through injury to put together a pretty good run.”
This week the teams will get a break from the hills as they head to Hart Ranch in Rapid City for a meet on Friday. This is a relatively flat course which Beehler is hoping will provide an opportunity for all of the girls to compete, and should result in some fast times for everyone.