A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
From left, sophomore Evan Rothamel, junior Andrew Shepherd, junior Ellis Allen (behind Shepherd) and senior Ian Berube race in Mora on Sept. 10. The Cloquet boys placed third in the meet, with two runners in the top 10: Rothamel in fourth place and Shepherd in seventh place.
Ellis Allen and Andrew Shepherd race at the Paul Bauer meet in Grand Rapids, where the Cloquet boys took first place. Evan Rothamel placed third, Allen took ninth, Ian Berube 14th, Shepherd 18th and Ethan Lavan 19th.
The Cloquet boys and girls cross country teams are slowly and quietly building towards sectionals. The Lumberjacks boys return two runners who made the state meet last season. They hope to see an even greater number make it to State this fall.
"For the boys team, we return the entire team except one runner," said Cloquet coach Chandra Allen. "Andrew Shepherd and Evan Rothamel both made it to state last year for us in cross country."
With 25 boys out for the team, Allen is blessed with a large contingent who have run at the varsity level. Returning runners for the boys team include Rothamel, Shepherd, Ellis Allen, Ian Berube, Jase Bell, Ethan Lavan, Mike Kruse and Gage Allen, all who ran varsity in their first few meets this season.
"The boys team [is] a pretty solid team," coach Allen said. "We [also] have Tim Kazmeirczak, Isaac Swanson and Jeremiah Bents, who are steadily improving. Each and any of them could be our ninth runner for the section team."
Unlike the experienced boys team, the girls team returned only four runners. They will rely on improving each week.
"We have 19 girls out for the team, and we have back Elsa Winbigler, Alli Weix, Audrey Berube and Andrianna Nelson," said coach Allen. "We will be looking at some of our middle school girls to fill in on varsity for the rest of the season."
Allen is working on building confidence with her young girls squad as they aim to peak when sectionals are held in just a few weeks.
"The girls team is very young, but has some talent," Allen said. "We are working on gaining confidence while racing and getting out in good position. For the girls, we would like to be competitive at the conference meet and run our best times at sections. We always hope to have a girl or two qualify individually for the state meet."
They lost one opportunity for training when the team missed a meet in Hibbing last Thursday - where the section meet will be held Oct. 24 - when the bus failed to show up. Activities director Paul Riess said it was a scheduling error by the bus company, which is short on drivers.
As the last few weeks of the season loom on the horizon, Allen said both teams are working on staying healthy and injury-free in hopes of performing their best at the sectional meet.
