Runners a little sluggish in Wright

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
For the second week in a row, the Dogies showed up and showed out as they finished in second through ninth place at Wright on Saturday and, in doing so, ran away with the team title. However, head coach Kathy Beehler admitted she was a little disappointed in how her runners performed on the day given they seemed to take a step backward by adding time to their previous weeks’ contests.
“They just seemed a little tight and complacent,” she frowned. “We were flat and just didn’t run up to our potential.”
The course was laid out as a race around the town of Wright, and as such didn’t give Beehler the ability to watch her runners much throughout the contest. She saw them start the first 300 meters of the race at the high school track, she then cut through town to catch them at the one mile mark, and finally got to watch them come down the bike path back to the track to finish the race.
“I just didn’t get to see them run very much, so it’s hard for me to decide why we didn’t run well,” Beehler admitted. “I just know that when I did see them we looked labored and flat and I don’t know why.”
Environmental factors may have come into play as on Saturday, Mother Nature threw some challenges at the runners in Campbell County. The air was pretty heavy with smoke from the Oregon/California fires that are currently raging, and the 80-degree temperature didn’t help matters either, considering how much cooler it’s been in the last couple of weeks.
Only a couple of runners saw an improvement from their times in Buffalo a couple of weeks ago, and given that there remains only a couple of regular season meets before conference, Beehler is concerned about where her team is at this point.
Carson Bock was the first Dogie across the finish line for the second week in a row. He finished second with a time of 18:35.93, and Bridger Alishouse was hot on his heels in third place. Avery Chick was fourth, Tristan Troftgruben fifth, Teegan Hatheway came in sixth, Mathew Drake was seventh and Zach Purviance rounded out the top seven in eighth place.
After Purviance, it was Max Makousky (9th), Conrad Prell (12th), Zander White (14th), Nathan Strickland (17th), Gunner Ramsey (20th) and Travis Scribner (23rd).
“As a team, we didn’t have our best race, and though we finished as a pack, we didn’t run that way like we did last week in Wheatland,” Beehler explained. “The kid from Sundance who won the race was also a minute slower from last week, so I’m not sure what happened. I just know we need to do better because we are going to meet some tough competition in the next couple of weeks.”
Freshman Tara Carter was the first finisher across the line for the Lady Dogies, and this was the first time she had competed since the first weekend out. She finished 10th with Alaina Laurence right behind in 11th place. Janaya Ralls was 13th while Lara Lopez rounded things out for the squad in 15th place. 
“The girls also seemed to struggle to loosen up and push,” Beehler nodded. “As a whole, we need to pick up our effort this week.”
The team will head to Sundance to race on Friday and Beehler is looking forward to seeing where her squad falls out, especially against Tongue River whose top three runners are right there with Newcastle’s top three.