Eagles finish middle of pack at home invite

The Northland Pines girls and boys cross country teams finished fifth and sixth, respectively, out of 11 teams at their home invite in Eagle River before traveling to compete at Tomahawk last Thursday. 

All five girls that ran for Pines set personal best times, while six guys finished the home meet.  

The Eagles were led again by Jason Linn and Abigayle Congleton on their respective sides on a comfortable course in Eagle River. 

Linn finished his run in 18:04 and cracked the top 10 in 10th before Ethan Miller was the only other Pines runner with a sub-19-minute time. He finished at 18:52, which was good for 19th place.

The next finisher was Cole Wiedenbeck with a 36th place finish at 19:53. 

Matt Milanowski, Griffin Beyer and Owen Grassl were the last Eagle runners to finish with times of 20:56, 21:07 and 21:29, respectively.

“The boy’s team did a good job tonight,” said Pines coach Patrick Gauthier. “Jason LInn did another great job of leading the team.” 

On the girls side, Congleton started the personal best times with a 13th-place finish with a time of 22:48. 

Aubrey White, Jessica Linn, Ava Gaetano and Emily Ritter all finished within 20 seconds of each other and also set records for themselves with times of 24:13, 24:28, 24:38 and 24:45, respectively. 

“The girls had a good meet. They all achieved personal records, and being our home meet makes it even better,” stated Gauthier. 

The Eagles will return to host the Great Northern Conference meet in Eagle River this Saturday, Oct. 19, starting at 11 a.m. 

From there, Northland Pines will compete at sectionals in Colby Friday, Oct. 25, with the girls race starting at 4:15 p.m. and the boys race beginning at 5 p.m.