Jays capture top-three spots at home invite

The Three Lakes-Phelps cross country teams stayed local this past week and hosted an invitational Sept. 25 at Big Stone Golf Course in Three Lakes. Both varsity squads finished inside the top three on their home turf. 

The Lady Jays had another well-rounded team effort and took first place in the meet with 26 team points. Rhinelander finished second as a team with 42 points. 

On the boys side, this is the first time this year the team had more than two runners at the meet and had enough to score as a team. With other runners also participating in soccer, Thursday was the first time the schedules aligned for the multi-sport athletes to run. Three Lakes-Phelps finished in third place with 76 points, behind Rhinelander and Lakeland. Junior Nolan Waltz cruised to another victory as he took the top medal once again this year and defended his first-place finish from a year ago.

Waltz was seen running all alone at the front of the pack on Thursday, as he cleared the field by nearly a minute. He finished with a time of 16:26, as second-place finisher Avrom Barr of Rhinelander took second with a time of 17:18. 

He was joined for the first time this season by teammates Ethan Potrykus, Cohen Welsh, Charlie Welsh and Matthew Potrykus. Potrykus (Ethan), a senior, finished his first race by capturing a spot just outside the top-10 in 11th place. His finishing time was 19:06.9, just a second off 10th place. 

Welsh (Cohen) finished in a tight grouping just a few seconds off his teammate. He took 13th place with a time of 19:14. He was a few seconds behind 12th and got pushed from behind by a pair of runners towards the end of the race. 

Welsh (Charlie) and Potrykus (Matthew), the two freshmen runners, finished together at the line with times of 20:37.3 and 20:37.8 for 25th and 26th place out of 78 runners. Wyatt Gebele continued his time improvement as he clocked a time of 25:30.

For the girls, freshman Bekah Koch paced the 12 Jays who finished in her first home invite at the varsity level. She ran at a sub-seven-minute mile pace and took fourth place with a time of 21:37. Three freshmen finished in the top four in the girls race. 

Sophomores Rylee Glembin and Erica Stauffer were the next finishers for Three Lakes-Phelps. Glembin crossed the finish line by herself in sixth place with a time of 22:20, while Stauffer took seventh at 22:53. Freshman Grace Mandli was the fourth runner in the top-10 for the Jays, taking ninth with a time of 23:26.

Senior Ayla Connor finished just outside the top 10 in 13th place, where she finished with a time of 24:15. Juniors Mikayla Corbett and Madelynn Hanneman grouped together and finished 27:18 and 27:22, respectively. Seniors Kassidy Williams and Melanie Stauffer crossed a few spots behind their teammates and registered times of 28:02.5 and 28:08.4. Emily Corbett, Raqual Gebele and Hailey Koepp had times of 32:18.2, 35:35.8 and 52:50, respectively.

Three Lakes-Phelps will look to keep momentum rolling as the team travels to Athens next Thursday, Oct. 2, for a meet starting at 5 p.m. They will then travel to Eagle River for the Northland Pines Invite on Tuesday, Oct. 7, at 4 p.m.

*This story will be updated with coach comments when avalible.