WISCONSIN RAPIDS — Declan Gregg had run in three WIAA Division 3 state cross country meets before Saturday, but his last one was going to be different.
The Aquinas High School senior finished outside the top 100 individuals as a freshman and sophomore before surging up to 11th as a junior and helping the Blugolds place fourthas a team.
It was going to be tough for Aquinas to do much better than that as a team at The Ridges Golf Course this time around, but Gregg could shoot for the stars and did when his time of 15 minutes, 52.7 seconds made him an individual champion.
Gregg’s performance — he led after each mile marker — helped Aquinas place fifth this season.
“I led for probably 98 percent of the race, which wasn’t the plan,” Gregg said. “The plan was for me to hang back, but I thought it was going too slow.”
Gregg beat Crandon senior Taylor Karcz (15:59) for the title, and the two ran a tight race for most of it. Karcz did hold the lead briefly, but Gregg made his final push with about 800 meters to go to reclaim it.
“I didn’t really take off, it was more him coming back to me,” Gregg said. “But I had to take the lead, and I went from there.”
Gregg said the championship was his goal since the summer. A strong fall season reaffirmed that as the race approached. He attributed his focus and hard work, along with challenging courses the Blugolds competed on, to the success.
“I was a little worried when I saw some of the times people were running,” Gregg said. “But I knew that the courses we were running were harder and that could make a difference.”
The Blugolds completed their second top-five team finish with two more runners finishing among the top 60.
Senior Thomas Gormon III was 27th overall with his time of 17:04.7 (13 team points), and junior Kaleb Azene was 58th in 17:48.6 for 27 team points. Junior Oliver Buck (18:27) and senior Roger Flege (18:42.7) also scored with runs for the Blugolds.
“I’m happy with it,” Gregg said of the team finish. “Top five out of 300 schools? That’s not bad at all.”
