The Dike-New Hartford cross country teams will be put to the test when they join several other NICL teams at Monday’s meet at Denver.
In their last action, the boys team placed eighth at Starmont on Tuesday, September 16. That night, sophomore Sully O’Neill ran a season-best 18:27, bouncing back from a bout of illness as the team’s top performer. Head Coach Will Reingardt says getting O’Neill back to full speed and solidifying the fifth varsity runner are key objectives for the near future.
“He ran kind of conservative in the beginning parts of the races the last two meets to help him survive and get his legs and lungs back under him,” Reingardt says. “And Gus L’ Heureux as a sophomore really stepped up at Starmont as well. And then we do have a couple freshmen, Brayden Starr and McKennen Lindaman. Those guys have been our number on and two at times throughout the season and, Gus put a good one together. Soif we can get those four all going off at the same meet and we figure out our number five, we should most definitely improve as a team, and we’re looking forward to that.”
Reingardt says the Denver meet will provide a glimpse of the conference and state qualifying meets, with many of the league’s top talent being joined by some of the better programs from other conferences.
“It’s smaller meet, but it’s pretty loaded up. It’s same story, different sports, different year where the NICL is going to be strong regardless. It doesn’t matter who graduates. There’s always another slew that are replacing all these kids that graduate. The conference is loaded again, so we’re looking forward to seeing where Denver’s at, where Grundy Center’s at, Jesup as well. Got a lot of quality competition within our conference, which helps prepare us for down the road.”
The girls team is coming off a third place finish at Starmont, where Sedona Oldenburger posted a seventh place finish in a PR of 21:55 to lead the team.
Monday’s action will start at 5:40 p.m. at Willow Run Country Club.
