Somerset cross country team gets two All-MBC runners

• Grace Becher

Junior Grace Becher has been a reliable number two runner for the Spartan girls team this season.

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Somerset seniors Tia Belter and Jake Wishard earned all-conference honors during the 2011 Middle Border Conference Cross Country Meet, held last Thursday in Amery.

The Somerset boys placed sixth in the conference meet while the girls team finished eighth.

The sixth place finish for the boys was a definite highlight, according to Somerset coach Diane Belter.

“That’s the best I’ve seen them race as a group in quite a while,” Belter said. “They all ran this course like they liked it.”

Wishard led the Spartans, placing eighth to earn second team all-conference laurels. Senior Tyler Kampsula ran one of the best races of his career, placing 16th.

“Tyler worked so hard. He finally went out with confidence,” Belter said.

Alex Meyer and Emmitt Foster also brought their times under the 20-minute mark. Meyer finished 29th in 19:50 and Foster was right behind him, in 19:53. Freshman Austin Headlee was the fifth varsity runner, placing 44th.

Belter was equally as complimentary toward the girls team. She said each of the girls had specific goals for the race and each of them gave a huge amount of effort to reach them.

Tia Belter held third place nearly the entire race. Prescott’s Victoria Simones and Osceola’s McKenzie Fortier broke from the pack and raced shoulder-to-shoulder most of the way. Fortier broke away in the final half-mile to win her second straight MBC title. Last year Belter finished in second place and she followed that with the third place finish this year.

Grace Becher was a solid second runner for the Spartans, placing 20th. Carrie Culibert, Josselyn Moncada and Laura Smith all posted significant improvement in their times as the Spartans’ third, fourth and fifth varsity runners.

This Friday the Spartans will run in the WIAA Division 2 Barron Sectional Meet, with the girls running at 4 p.m. and the boys running at 4:45 p.m. Coach Belter said the team will compete with similar goals to those they had in the conference meet, concentrating on individual success. The Spartans are hoping Wishard and Tia Belter can have their best races of the season to become one of the individual qualifiers for the 2011 WIAA state meet.

Tags: cross country, sports, somerset, spartans, prep