By Kevin Cunningham
Sports Correspondent
The Dana Waddell cross country invitational took place on Sept. 13 and the Whitewater High School co-ed team had multiple top-10 finishers. Starting with the boys, the team took fifth out of 10 total teams.
Leading the way was junior Jacob Korf, placing in eighth out of 84 total runners. Korf ran a 17:19.1.
Following Korf was Connor Laue running a 17:38.2 and finishing in 11th-place. Matt Mattingly, Jon Zheng and Justin Brantmeier rounded out the top-five for the Whippers placing in 32nd, 37th and 50th, respectively.
“Jacob continues to make large gains in his strength on the course and is driven to push himself to new heights,” Whippets head coach Chad Carstens said. “Connor Laue wasn’t far behind in 11th place to also earn a medal. The team’s third runner, Matt Mattingly, got his second race out of the way and chopped several minutes off his previous best to run 18:57 and finish in 35th.”
For the girls, 12 teams in total competed and as a team, the Whippets finished in seventh. Allisan Barrett put together the best run of the day placing-wise, earning a third-place finish.
Barrett ran a 19:43.1, placing only behind two Dodgeland runners. Nicole Tomomitsu finished in 15th-place with her time of 20:33.2, behind Barrett.
Following Tomomitsu were Rebekah Schumacher, Hailey Prager and Abby Grosinske, finishing in 40th, 47th and 66th, respectively.
“Nicole Tomomitsu has raced very well as the team’s second runner coming to the line in 15th,” Carstens said. “Both Allisan and Nicole carried home medals from the invite. Also performing well as the team’s third runner was senior leader Rebekah Schumacher. It was by far her best and smoothest race of the season completing the 5K distance in 22:20.”
The team’s next race will be the Angel Invitational starting at 9 a.m. on Sept. 17 at UW-Parkside.
