Oregon cross country looked solid at the Smiley Invitational.
Girls CC
Looking to push themselves against another solid field of competitors, the Panther girls once again rose to the top Saturday at the prestigious Smiley Invitational at the American Legion Golf Course in Wausau.
Led by junior Morgan Engelhart's third-place finish out of 181 timed competitors in 15 minutes, 29 seconds, Oregon finished sixth overall out of 23 schools and second overall amongst the meet's nine "small schools" division with a combined time of 1 hour, 21 minutes, 54 seconds.
"We go there to race the best people and compete against the northern powerhouses," head coach Doug Debroux said. "The girls know that this was one of several races we'll use to hopefully reach our goals of a conference championship, and hopefully a state berth."
Engelhart's time was second only to Pulaski's Deedra Irwin, who finished 30 spots ahead of the Oregon junior at last year's WIAA Division 1 state meet, in the small school scoring, and also behind meet champion Liz Berkholtz of Sun Prairie (15:17.03).
"Morgan's worked hard for the past three years and it comes with a price," head coach Doug Debroux said. "She's a great role model, who I think inspires the whole team."
Sisters Annie and Allie Heifner placed sixth and seventh (20th and 21st overall), separated by a mere four seconds in 16:04 and 16:07, respectively.
Kali Jahn finished 15th (41st overall) in 16:32, while Katie Jeffris completed the Panthers top five, one second ahead of teammate Sandy Hughes for 40th place in 17:41. Meghan Zernick was the team's final runner, clearing the course in 18:16.
"Our first four race great races, but to compete at the level we want to get we need to keep getting better and we have to close the gap between our fourth and fifth runners," Debroux said.
One candidate to run as the team's fifth runner may be freshman Justine Bertler, who finished seventh in the JV race.
Boys CC
Matt Bakken ran a 17:16 despite not having a shoe for the mile-and-a-half of Saturday race, finishing 16th overall out of 178 runners and fourth overall in the the small school competition.
Oregon finished seventh out of the nine small schools and 16th overall out of 23 schools with a combined team time of 1 hour, 33 minutes, 24 seconds.
Matt Mixdorf finished as the Panthers second runner, clearing the 5k course in 17:56 to earn a 15th-place finish in the small school race (42nd overall).
Oregon's pack was widely dispersed from there as Luke Belanus came in 19th (69th overall) with his time of 18:25 - more than a minute ahead of Tyler Hale, who finished in 19:37.
Connor MacWilliams rounded out Oregon's varsity scores with a 20:09.
Typical varsity runners Gus Schermetzler and Michael Merdler ran in the JV race where they were able to run up near the front of the pack, leading Oregon's JV to a fourth-place finish.
The Panthers head to Janesville on Sept. 27 for the Midwest Invitational at 9:15 a.m.
