Mahomet-Seymour boys’ cross country wins Charleston Invitational
By Fred Kroner
The state-ranked Mahomet-Seymour boys’ cross-country team was dominant on Saturday (Sept. 4) in its first meet of the season.
Competing in the 17-school Charleston Invitational, M-S outran all competitors.
The Bulldogs’ final team score was 33 points. Runner-up Champaign Central had 102 points and third-place Arthur-Lovington/Atwood-Hammond finished with 127 points.
In the preseason state rankings compiled by milesplit.com, M-S was rated second in Class 2A.
In a field with 148 competitors, M-S athletes Joseph Scheele and Kyle Nofziger placed second and third, respectively.
Scheele covered the 3-mile course in 15 minutes, 39.47 seconds. Nofziger was a step behind at 15:40.04.
The Bulldogs had two other top-10 performers.
Hayden Grotelueschen was sixth in 16:26.77 and Jonah Singer was seventh in 16:32.98.
Rounding out the team’s top seven were: Ben Wallace (15th in 16:55.44), Karsten Waisath (17th in 17:08.20) and John Tender (38th in 18:02.71).
Thirteen other M-S athletes also competed at Charleston, including three more who finished the race in less than 18:20: Avery Seaman (18:05.47), Gabe Difanis (18:06.08) and Lukas Nykaza (18:15.12).
The school’s other participants were: Blake Dillman (19:01.52), Gabe Wisnasky (19:05.03), Grant Smysor (20:21.58). Julian Eckley (20:30.55), Zach Wilcoski (20:31.94), Jaxon Themanson (20:47.19), Will Slezak (21:26.55), Caleb Xamis (21:29.98), Alex Carpenter (23:05.93) and Kaleb Kasper (23:28.71).
M-S returns to action on Saturday (Sept 11) at the 54th annual Lee Halberg Invitational, in Springfield.
