Shawano girls take 6th at state cross-country championships

The Shawano Community High School girls cross-country team earned its best-ever finish at state after placing sixth during the Division 2 race Oct. 29 at the 2022 WIAA State Cross-Country Championships at The Ridges Golf Course in Wisconsin Rapids.

The Hawks earned the strong finish with a score of 186. Shawano was making its third-ever state appearance, having placed 15th in 1981 and 13th in 2021.

Like they had all season, Lily Guenther and Bailey Hendricks led Shawano at state.

Guenther placed 20th with a time of 20 minutes, 7.1 seconds. After a first mile of 6:10 had her in 30th, she worked up to 25th by the 2-mile marker. She passed an additional five girls in the final mile-plus.

“The race has a lot of people, so it was kind of hard to figure out your pacing,” said Guenther, a junior. “The only person I could see the whole time was Bailey, so I was just pacing off Bailey and I knew if I was by Bailey, I was OK. And a couple girls from other teams I’d remember, some of the Freedom girls. I knew if I was by them, I was in a good spot. In the last mile, I just gave it whatever I had left.”

Hendricks, a freshman, completed the course in 20:16.1 and moved past three runners after the opening mile.

“It was just really exciting, just like everybody cheering you on, running with a whole bunch of people that are like one second in front of you, one second behind you to push you even more,” said Hendricks on her first state run. “I thought I did good. It was a really tough course, hot day. But I thought I did pretty good.”

Junior Grace Chelberg was the next Hawk across the finish line, taking 64th in 21:04.6. Freshman Maci Beyer turned in an 83rd-place finish in 21:23.9. Sophomore Adalyn Barkley capped the team score by taking 120th in 22:16.1.

Freshmen Anabelle Schroeder (22:55.5) and Lauren Harkey (23:15.3) capped the seven-runner team, placing 135th and 143rd, respectively.

“With our second time (qualifying in a row) we were definitely excited, but our encouragement and confidence went up,” said Chelberg. “So now that we know that all these runners are returning — and possibly some new ones — we know that in the summer time and offseason we can put more work in, knowing we can come back maybe possibly a third year in a row.”

Full state results can be found at www.wiaawi.org/Portals/0/PDF/Results/Cross_Country/2022/d2gstateresults.pdf. More photos from the D2 girls race can be found on the NEW Media Inc. Sports Facebook page at www.facebook.com/NewMediaIncSports.

sports@newmedia-wi.com.