Two local cross country teams will compete at Tuesday’s Starmont Invitational, which is one of the largest regular season meets by number of participants. The meet will feature 28 schools from eight different conferences. Locally, Aplington-Parkersburg and Dike-New Hartford will attend.
Dike-New Hartford coach Will Reingardt says it’s part of a grueling schedule, and the NICL teams in attendance will make it a challenge.
“Doesn’t matter where you go, you’re going to run into really good competition around this area,” Reingardt says. “We’re pretty east heavy with our meet schedule so we’ll be seeing tough competition all around. And then obviously the NICL is, and I’ve said this and I will always say this from year in year out, no matter what sport it is, it’s going to most definitely be strong. I know at one point I think there were seven girls NICL teams ranked, then at least four or five boys teams ranked in the NICL, which is great. It prepares you for the end of the year, for the conference meet and for districts and hopefully for state. So yeah, there’s no easy meet or easy meet or anything like that.”
No Wolverine runners rank inside the top-25 best times among participants. Aplington-Parkersburg’s Quinnlyn Schultz has the 18th-fastest time in the girls race, and AP’s Trevan Thomas has the 15th-best time in the boys race.
The girls varsity race will start at 5:40 p.m. and the boys race will be at 6:10.
