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Brooklyn Luebke Advances to State Cross Country Meet this Saturday; Boys Team 6th, Girls 7th
Senior Brooklyn Luebke advanced to the WIAA State Cross Country Championships for the third-straight year with her second place finish at the Division 3 Sectional meet hosted by MLHS at Meadow Links Golf Course in Manitowoc on Saturday.
The race for the individual girls sectional crown was a battle of determination between Luebke and freshman Hannah Welch of Valders. Luebke, after taking and maintaining an early lead up until the middle of the race, then traded the lead a few times with Welch in the last half-mile of the race while the rest of the 107 girls in the race were a half minute or more behind them. Both runners were gassed in the final hilly 400 meters to the finish, with Welch managing to pass Luebke to take the sectional crown with her 19:35 finish. Luebke took second in 19:45 to earn her three-peat trip to the State meet as an individual qualifier.
Our Lancers girls team took 7th out of the 20 schools at the meet, matching their 2019 Sectional finish, and finishing higher than any time in the five years previous to that. Freshman Trisha Kiss finished 29th in 22:48, senior Emma Kolar was 38th in 23:03, junior Isabella Blauert was 56th in 23:53, junior Lizzy Kolar was 66th in 24:13, senior Grace Zander was 67th in 24:18, and sophomore Taylor Schuettpelz was 92nd in 27:00. Besides seniors Emma Kolar and Grace Zander, varsity alternate Katie Ungemach also closed out her Lancer cross country career Saturday.
The two girls teams advancing to the state meet by virtue of their 1st and 2nd place finishes are Oshkosh Lourdes and Valders. Besides Brooklyn Luebke, other girls individual state qualifiers are Bea Dramm (Sevastopol), Leah Patterson (Valley Christian), and Hadley Heimerman and Lyndsay Sass (both Cedar Grove-Belgium).
The Lancer boys took 6th of 20 schools, which included some very difficult competition. Senior Shawn Egerer led the Lancers, finishing 22nd in 18:29 to close out his Lancer cross country career. Freshman Jacob Kanzenbach took 35th in 19:13, junior Seth Ciha was 42nd in 19:27, junior Jonah Melso was 44th in 19:32, freshman Braden Revak ran a PR time of 20:29 to finish 54th, sophomore Jon Thoma was 69th in 21:08 and sophomore Noah Lukasek was 94th in 22:40.