Both Warriors and Lady Bobcats place three in Top-10 at Worland Invite

WORLAND - After all the rain Friday morning the weather held out long enough for the Worland Invite to take place and while it might have been cold for the spectators, it was perfect a temperature for the Worland High School and Hot Springs County High School cross-country runners out at the Green Hills Golf Course.

The hard work is beginning to pay off for both Warrior and Lady Warrior teams this season, as they begin to see the benefits of those grueling workouts. The Warriors had three runners place in the top 10 with Porter Harman taking third (16:50.67), Nathaniel Nelson sixth (17:26.60) and Jadon Swalstad seventh (17:28.74).

"It was an awesome meet, we had a lot of PR's [personal records] and the weather was terrific for running. Our course is a quick and fast one, the boys looked strong and the girls improved a lot. The two Holiday girls, Kelli and Lindsay, were great and scored very well for the team. The girls as a team are really starting to make strong improvements," said WHS cross-country coach Tanya Kienlen.

The Lady Bobcats also had three of their runners place in the top 10. McKenna Bomengen was third and just off from cracking the sub-20-minute mark, Olivia Weyer set a personal record running a 20:56.89 and finished seventh and Tahja Hunt came in at ninth with a time of 21:09.92.

"That was awesome and the one that wasn't was our freshman JV runner [Dayna Sandberg 25:03.37] and she dropped two minutes off her PR. As a team definitely, time wise and even morale. Everyone was running well and having fun. Oliva Weyer set a huge personal record and McKenna was so close to breaking the 20-minute mark, she was only 20 seconds off," said HSCHS cross-country coach Stephanie Metz.

Worland Junior Kelli Holiday and her sister, freshman Lindsay Holiday, finished sixth and eighth, respectively. While the team's other pair of sisters, senior Paige Flock and freshman Brooke Flock finished 16th and 17th, respectively. Rounding out the team was Hailee Hunter coming in 18th.

"I'm very proud of Paige for stepping it up for the girls team and making a huge PR and bringing the team up. [Brooke Flock] is right on her sister's tail, a freshman pushing a senior that's good for our team. Haliee Hunter is doing a tremendous job for her first year of cross-country," said Kienlen.

Added Kienlen about the Lady Warriors, "It's hard because they want to see benefits right away but our effort that we've been putting in has been benefiting them. They're hard workers and keep pushing through, sooner than later they're going to reap the rewards for sure."

For the 'Cats, senior Hudson Roling competed in his first race of the season, coming off his golf season where he finished runner-up. For his first time out and on a short practice week Roling impressed his coach finishing 13th with a time of 17:50.26.

"Hudson did great. It was a hard race for him, since it was his first meet. He only had four days of practice, as he just finished golf season. It was a solid performance for him to start his season, he was competitive and continued to move up throughout the race. I was very proud of his performance," said Metz.

The Worland Invite course is a fast course, as Kienlen said, but it does test a runner's mental fortitude as there is a portion of the course where there is no cheering section for the runners. This can be a tough stretch as runners have to find another way to motivate themselves.

Leading up to the race Kienlen talked with her team about the importance of pushing through and ways they could tackle the toughest aspect of the course.

"There's a part on the backside of the course where there aren't spectators and it can be easy to fall behind without people cheering you on. Before the race we talked about how when they get to that part they focus on their pace or if there's a runner or teammate in front of them they catch up. That way we can work on our splits if it was a teammate or an opposing runner that could push them to push through that tough part," said Kienlen.

It was around this time last season when both Warrior and Lady Warrior teams began to show impressive progresses, and for the Warriors they started to creep up the conference leaderboard list. This season it looks to be playing out the same way as both teams had runners running their best race of the season.

Kienlen explained her approach to the team's training and why her teams start to make huge leaps forward in their development around this point in the season.

"For us it's not so much about putting in a ton of mileage, and for some teams that works for them. But we focus on the quality of the miles we put in during a workout. That to me is more important, getting those quality workouts every day," said Kienlen.

For the Bobcat and Lady Bobcats their training intensity will keep to the same routine as they haven't quite hit that tapering point in the season.

"We've been consistent with our workouts and will get our tapering going shortly. Workout days and repeats we're still hitting those pretty hard. So we haven't lightened up yet, but we set out practices to what to expect from the upcoming course. Whether there's a hill or what have it, there's things we do to mentally prepare for it," said Metz.

This week both HSCHS and WHS will be at the Bobcat Invitational on Saturday. The Bobcat Invite is a tough course that's run on Legion Town and Country golf course and features a significant hill. The race will also be of importance because, the same course will be the location of the 3A East conference meet on Oct. 13.

"We'll go around the course Friday and we've incorporated some hills in our practices this week. It's about just knowing the course and anticipating the hill. We know it's going to come and our veteran runners know what to expect. It should be a good day, it's our homecoming week. We'll have good support coming out and they PR'd here last year," said Metz.

The Bobcat Invite will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday with the middle school races first, followed by the high school girls and ending with the high school boys.

REACHARD RACE

After the Worland Invite the Reachard Race took place, which is a charity run for the WHS cross-country program, and while the weather might have lowered the turnout Kienlen and her runners were grateful of those in the community that turned out.

"The Reachard Race was good and we were appreciative of the community members that hacked it," said Kienlen.