Oakdale Boys XC Wins Big

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Nicholas Raumann

Last weekend, Oakdale’s boys cross country team went to a competition at Brunswick High School. Juniors Kyle Lund, Collin Dempsey, and senior Collin Shriner led the team to a large school division victory, beating second place team Northwest High School by 46 points.

 

Oakdale had three runners finish in the top ten. Lund finished first with a time of 16:12 and Dempsey finished second with a time of 16:19. They beat third by five seconds and fourth by twenty eight seconds. Shriner finished seventh with a time of 17:11.

 

In the JV race, a pair of freshmen Will Gregorio and Ryan LaRocca, ran sub twenty minutes in their first high school meet. Gregorio ran 19:33 finishing sixth and LaRocca ran 19:48 finishing ninth. Sophomore Larry Krepp also had a great run finishing seventeenth with a time of 20:07.

 

Gregorio commented on his time, stating “It felt pretty good, I was very surprised to run that because I didn’t think I could do that.” When asked about why he chose to run he explained, “When I was in 6th grade I wanted to try Cross Country because my Mom was a top female runner in college for Track and Cross Country, it motivated me to try and follow in her footsteps.”

 

Oakdale won another meet on September 11 at T.J. High School, the team had seven runners finish top ten of the varsity race. They beat the second place team Tuscarora by 60 points. Lund and Dempsey finish first and second and Shriner finished third. Lund and Dempsey finish with times of 16:27 and 16:28, Shriner ran a 17:04, 18 seconds ahead of fourth.

 

Sophomore Spencer Buckwalter finished eighth in the race after losing his shoe at the start or the race. Buckwalter still ran 17:46, he beat his previous time by twenty one seconds. Joshua Milliken, Nick Stokes, and Charles Parrott all finished top ten.  

 

Lund stated “The people on my team help me because I have people to compete with and help me with my mindset during the race. Also during practice my teammates help me to train hard and not give up.” Lund also talked about what he thinks about during his race “I try to think about the pain as little as possible, also I think about my opposing runners and where they are around me.”

 

Both the JV and Varsity teams came close to a perfect score of 15, Varsity scoring 17 and JV 16. Senior Evan Schaefer lead the JV team winning the race by forty six seconds with a time of 18:47. Will Gregorio and Ryan LaRocca finished second and third. The JV team also had seven in the top ten, including runners Aiden Demma, Larry Krepp, Nathan Wooster, and Nick Redman. The Oakdale Boys next meet is on September 22 at Hereford High School.