It was an overcast, chilly and rainy afternoon in Prescott on Thursday when cross country teams came together to compete for all-conference honors.

The Prescott Cardinals had several runners in position to garner first and second team honors with a chance to advance to sectionals and hopefully state. Head Coach Tim Phillips said the tools are in place, they just need to stick to their plan.

“For about the last week we've been tapering. So, we're kind of backing off a little bit, certainly on the volume, and rolling off on the intensity. All the conditioning that we've done is kind of in place, so now all we need to do is just keep them sharp, keep them fresh and excited about racing.”

That conditioning was certainly on display at the conference tournament as Prescott had Breckin Schommer finish second overall and get first team all-conference honors, Jayde Canfield finished 14^th and got second team all-conference and Ian Leask finished 22^nd, one place outside of an honorable mention. The girls’ team had Amber Van Loon finish in the top 20 and get an honorable mention as well.

“We try to hit a peak in performance for the conference tournament and sectionals. From what I saw, a lot of our athletes were running faster today than they had the whole season, and on a course that’s known to be a little bit tougher,” Phillips said. “So, it looks to me like that training is kind of coming into place like we expected, and hopefully we'll get another solid performance at sectionals.”

Even with the way their top runners finished in the conference, Prescott was a distant fourth in the conference, so the path to state for these runners is likely to be as individuals.

“I mean, we know where we need to go, how fast we need to run, and what we'll have to do to move up,” Canfield said. “I’d have to do a lot to make it, but there’s always a shot. Every year I’ve had a good race at sectionals, so if I do it again, maybe I have a shot at state.”

For Schommer, this is more about overcoming falling short last year at sectionals where he had one of his worst races of the year.

“I was on pace to go state last year, but I just didn’t have a good race at sectionals. I could have just been dehydrated or something. The first mile I felt great, and it just went downhill after that. People I was normally beating beat me to go to state,” Schommer said. “This year, I’m about right where I was last year. So, I’d say I'm on the line to go to state. I’m just going to do normal pre-meet stuff this week. Eat right, sleep well the whole week and do everything I can. And hydrate.”

Hydration is always very important.

Leask said they aren’t ruling out the chance that they’ll show up to Rice Lake and surprise people by advancing to state as a team.

“We’ve just got to run hard,” Leask said. "There’s always a shot. Everyone can wake up and have a good day.”

Ellsworth runner gets honors

The weather was poor on Thursday when Ellsworth runners got to Prescott to compete for all-conference cross-country honors.

The rain started to come down in the middle of the girls’ portion of the event, but Ellsworth’s top runner, Kayla Kressin, wasn’t affected by it much.

“It’s the wind that’s so annoying more than anything, not the rain. The cold definitely makes the warmup harder too, you have to spend a lot of extra time warming up to keep those muscles loose,” Kressin said. “My best time is always like 65 and overcast. When it’s cold it takes more effort to move your muscles, but I would prefer the cold to the really hot days. Those just make you fatigued.”

Kressin had a good race, finishing in the top 20 and earning an honorable mention; however, she said her goal is to break her personal record for a 5k next week at the sectional competition in Rice Lake.

“My previous PR was at Rice Lake last year, so my goal is to do it again. There’s a lot of tough teams and bigger schools that we don't see most of the season that come there, so, I'm not expecting to finish in the top of the pack, but it's still a unique experience running with all those fast girls,” Kressin said. “This is actually my fastest year. What happens to a lot of girls is they end up getting slower as they get older. My freshman year I came out pretty slow, and I've just been getting a little bit faster each year, which has been fun. This year in track I’m hoping to get the school record this year in the 800. The record is 2:20, and I ran a 2:23 at sectionals last year. Three seconds is a lot though.”

Track doesn’t begin until spring, so all of Ellsworth’s efforts right now are going to be put towards turning in their best performances at sectionals. An interesting story line for Panthers’ runners leading up to that event has been the recovery of top boy’s runner Max Bergner, who broke his foot right at the end of August and only just got the boot off two weeks ago.

“That was rough. I was out hiking on Barn Bluff, I stumbled a little bit and my foot just folded and I broke the side of it,” Bergner said. “I had the boot on for four or five weeks. Training with it on was tough. I was on stationary bikes a lot. I also did a lot of aqua jogging in the pool, which is basically running in the water on the deep end where you can't touch. You have a small flotation vest on, and you run extremely slow in the water.”

Bergner got the boot off on the 29^th, so he was only able to compete in a single 5k before running in Prescott for the conference tournament.

Then, more bad luck hit as another runner actually stepped on his foot and caused a shoe malfunction. He finished the race anyway, took 12^th and got second team all-conference honors, albeit with an inflated time of 18:27. A much slower time than his personal record of 17:00 that he set last season.

“Right at the start basically, someone just clipped the back of my shoe. I tried to keep it on, and I tried to pull it back up, but I just couldn't without stopping. It kept slipping off, so I decided to kick it off and ran the rest of the race with one shoe on,” Bergner said. “I think I’m ready to go for sectionals. This weekend I’ll probably get a long run in, maybe a little aqua jogging, and next week I’ll do one speed workout and then taper down before Rice Lake.”

Bergner said a long run for him in the summer is 10-12 miles, but right now it’s more like eight.

Head coach of the Panthers, Marcie Jahnke, says the terrain is a lot different in Rice Lake, but not in a difficult way.

“It’s a course we know, so that's a nice thing about it. It's also a speed course because it's so flat. There's only one real dip in it, other than that you can see almost the entire course. So, you're very aware of your competition the entire time, and you know where everybody is,” Jahnke said. “The last half mile is super flat. It's like you just have to give it what you’ve got left, put it out there. You can see the finish line the whole time, you’ve just got to figure out how to get through it.”

Ellsworth’s qualifying runners are on the same page. With one race left before state, they’re going to give it what they’ve got and put it all out there.

“Everybody goes to sectionals, and you run your top seven on varsity. Then the qualifiers out of that advance to state,” Jahnke said. “We’re one race away.”