Great Plains Lutheran’s Halle Bauer competes in the girls varsity race last season at the Aberdeen Roncalli Invite at Lee Park Golf Course. Bauer won the Breathe Easy Meet in Milbank on Monday. Photo by John Davis taken 9/16/2021
MILBANK – Runners had to deal with heat and solid competition as they got their cross country seasons underway on during the Breathe Easy Meet on Monday.
Payton Brown of Milbank Area won the boys’ race, while Halle Bauer of Great Plains Lutheran topped the field in the girls’ division with temperature around 80 degrees at race time.
Aberdeen Roncalli was led by Paul Gutenkauf in the boys’ race finishing fifth in a time of 14:59.
“I thought Paul Gutenkauf had a very good meet,” said Roncalli coach Brady Lesnar. “I was hoping he would be in the 14s. He made it just by a second.”
Eighth-grader Matthew Peterson also finished in the top 10, taking eighth place.
“He’s very well developed for his age. He’s got good height and good build,” Lesnar said. “He’s a very strong swimmer and he carries that into the cross country season.”
Roncalli bunched up their runners in the girls’ race. A total of four Cavaliers were all within 48 seconds of each other, led by seventh-grader Addison Cassidy, who finished eighth.
“I thought she had an excellent meet,” Lesnar said. “We’re going to build off of it and hopefully continue to have a good season.”
The trio of Madisen Martin, Sarah Schmidt and Paige Schmidt finished 11th, 12th and 13th, respectively.
Aberden Roncalli’s Paul Gutenkauf competes in the boys varsity race last season at the Aberdeen Roncalli Invite at Lee Park Golf Course. Gutenkauf finished fifth at the Breathe Easy Meet Monday in Milbank. Photo by John Davis taken 9/16/2021
The Cavaliers will have another meet on Thursday when they travel to Redfield.
“We had about two and half weeks of solid practice. You could kind of tell by the end of that second full week, like OK we’re itching to run,” Lesnar said. “And now there’s going to be weeks where we’re like, oh man, I wish we just had a week to just focus on training. Every week from here on out through September we have two meets a week.”