Runners, to your mark!

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Editor
 
For the third consecutive year, the Newcastle High School Cross Country team started their season at the Newcastle Country Club golf course, hosting their one and only home meet on Friday.
The Dogies finished third overall as a team in the varsity division with 52 points and second overall in the junior varsity event with 29 points. The Lady Dogies competed in the junior varsity race and as the only school with enough runners to fill a team, finished first with 15 points. 
“It was really nice to see Aspen [Bloom] win her race, Sam [Scribner] win the boys’ JV and for Avery [Chick] to take second in the varsity race,” head coach Kathy Beehler said. 
Sawyer Clarkson of Belle Fourche, S.D., won the varsity race with an impressive time of 15:33.53. Beehler noted that he put her in mind of 2021 graduate Sydney Thorvaldson from Rawlins who amassed perhaps the best cross country career of any Wyoming athlete. 
“It was crazy and fun to watch him run, because he reminded me very much of watching Sydney,” Beehler said, smiling. “It was also fun to watch Avery run. He went out with Sawyer and gave it a whirl, but Sawyer just ran away from the pack pretty quickly.”
Clarkson ended up taking first a little over three minutes faster than Chick, who was second with a time of 18:47.27, which was a full eight seconds ahead of the third place finisher from Torrington.
“Avery ran well, he ran tough and he competed,” Beehler beamed. “The Torrington kid was on his tail the whole time but he held him off.”
With about a mile to go, Beehler let Chick know that Ayden Loya, the Trailblazer runner, was just eight seconds behind him. At first, Chick admitted that he wasn’t too worried, but after Loya gained four seconds on him, Chick developed a much greater sense of urgency. 
“At that point, I probably started my push to finish a little early and had to really gut it out,” Chick exclaimed. “It was kind of scary!”
“I was second for the whole race and Sawyer was so far in front of me that it was like he wasn’t even in the same race,” Chick chuckled. “It was weird to essentially be in the lead because I’ve never been in that situation before, and it was a little hard to pace myself.”
For the Dogies, Chick is the only seasoned varsity runner who returned to the squad this season. Teegan Hatheway, Wyatt Cole and Max Makousky each made appearances on the varsity roster last year, however those appearances were intermittent. 
“We’re pretty young, so kids are getting thrown in the deep end a little bit,” insisted Beehler. “We’re going to get better because we have the potential to do some good things this year.”
Hatheway was the second to finish for the Dogies coming across the finish line in 10th place with a time of 20:12.87. Cole was next in 13th, Makousky 15th and Mathew Drake rounded out the scoring for the Dogies in 21st place.
“They’re improving each week and I’m already seeing that,” Beehler nodded. “Now we’re going to work on getting our times closer together. We’ll also work on strategies to put ourselves in better positions to improve our team score.”
Sam Scribner finished his 5k in the JV race with a time of 20:21.31 which would have been the third fastest time for Newcastle in the varsity race. Because he’s an incoming freshman, Beehler made the determination to enter Scribner in the JV division for his first high school race. However, with the third fastest time, Scribner will be running varsity this week in Spearfish, S.D.
Nick Lopez finished fourth in  22:02.18 with Logan Olson right behind in fifth place and just 22 seconds off of Lopez’ time. Ben Carter was 12th, Tayson Wheeler 13th, Travis Scribner finished 16th, Caleb Hoover was 22nd and Richard Smith was three behind Hoover in 25th place. 
“Our JV boys did a great job,” Beehler said. “It’s a big jump moving from middle school to running a 5k in high school.”
After last year with only four girls out for the sport, Beehler is pleased that the Lady Dogies have enough runners to compete as a team
this season.
“It’s just so awesome to have a team, and they are working hard and doing a great job,” she said. 
Freshman Aspen Bloom won the junior varsity division by a margin of 35 seconds over the second place finisher. In addition, she finished four minutes in front of the next Lady Dogie runner, and comparing races, her time would have placed her 13th in the varsity division. 
Taylor Conklin crossed the finish line in fourth place with a time of 28:04.75. Rachel Baird was hot on her heels finishing fifth in 28:13.38. Janaya Ralls was a minute behind Baird but still took sixth place while Julie Morris was eighth in 29:44.67.
“Aspen did a great job, and was really out in front with a pretty comfortable margin,” Beehler began. “Taylor and Rachel finished together and Janaya and Julie were pretty close together as well, so the girls also will need to work on running closer together. I was really proud of Julie because she is a sprinter, so for her to adjust to the distance running, she did a great job.”
With their first meet under their belt, the team is turning their sights to Friday when they will travel to Spearfish for their meet. Beehler identified this as a 4A meet and due to its size it has a freshmen, JV and varsity division. As such, she is planning to run quite a few of the freshmen in that division, though she will be moving some up.
“We will move them up as quickly as they are ready, but we don’t want to do that too fast so that we don’t mess with their confidence,” Beehler explained. “We have some time to make the transition.”
The freshmen girls will start things off on Friday at 10 a.m. They will be followed by the freshmen boys, the varsity girls, the varsity boys, the JV girls, the JV boys, and then the middle school races will close out the day.