WISCONSIN RAPIDS — The West Salem High School senior Carter Quackenbush ran with a mission on Saturday, and his performance led the way in a state runner-up finish for the Panthers in the WIAA Division 2 state cross country meet.
Quackenbush was the top individual after one mile, was second after two and crossed the finish line seventh overall as West Salem ran to a team score of 114 that was only beaten by Kohler’s 77 at The Ridges Golf Course in Wisconsin Rapids.
Quackenbush was timed at 16 minutes, 4.1 seconds and gave the Panthers four team points for his performance., which helped the Panthers hold off third-place Dodgeville/Mineral Point’s team score of 118.
Kohler won with each of its five scoring runners among the top 29 in the team competition.
West Salem placed all of its runners among the top 40 in terms of team runners and had three among the top 31 overall. Junior Carson Gronemus was 27th overall (16:45.8) and senior Tom Stenberg 31st (16:50.5).
The Panthers also received scoring runs from senior Drew Anderson (17:27.1) and sophomore Andrew Lorenz (17:28.7) as they finished among the state’s top 10 for the fifth year in a row.
West Salem was fourth last season, and that followed ninth-, seventh- and eighth-place finishes the previous three seasons.
Logan junior Gabe Passe placed 98th (17:46.4) in his first state tournament.
DIVISION 1
Central senior Bode Nessler finished 97th overall in 17:00.2, and Holmen sophomore Matthew Hoff 104th in 17:05.6 in a race won by Onalaska’s Manny Putz. There is a full story on Putz’s victory posted on couleesports.com.
DIVISION 3
Brookwood sophomore Cooper Powell was 44th with his time of 17:26 and Bangor freshman Grays Truskowski 88th (18:23.8). Bangor senior Evan Buchholz was also 104th (18:39.9) to round out individual qualifiers in a race won by Aquinas’ Declan Gregg.
There is a full story on Gregg’s win and the fifth-place finish by Aquinas on couleesports.com.
