Teri Tune
Sports Scene
The young and improving Hemlock girls cross country team has been making steady progress this season.
The Lady Huskies finished fifth at the Chesaning Invitational held at Showboat Park with a team score of 161.
Lauren Schonfeld led the way for Hemlock with a time of 22:20.4. She was followed by Hannah Massa 22:43.9, Katelyn Tessin 23:00.7, Tamara Mitchell 23:54.6, Carolyn Ling 23:58.5, Annie Nikolai 24:36.8, and Anna Beck 24:38.6.
“Our team this year is very young; we don’t even have a senior,” coach George Drown said. “The team is made up of two freshmen, four sophomores, and one junior, so they are just getting used to running. Some of our sophomores ran track last year, and I convinced them to run cross country this year, but this is a whole new experience to most of the team.”
Even though the team is young, coach Drown expects big things from them.
“I told the girls this week that they could finish anywhere from third to sixth in their league; it all depended on them,” Drown said. “If they work hard, then in the next two years a league title is not out of the question, and then long term I would like to see Hemlock take a state title. That’s something that we haven’t been able to do in over fifteen years.”
The boys did not compete at Chesaning, and they are battling injuries this season.
“The guys are pretty beat up right now,” Drown said. “We are ranked ninth right now in Division 3, and that’s a fair ranking for how we’ve ran so far. We have a great conference that keeps us competitive. Chesaning is ranked right behind us at tenth, and both Frankenmuth and Clare are ranked also. I think that’s something to be said for mid-Michigan and the talent here.
We won our first Jamboree and it’s one of our goals this year to win our conference, but also to compete for a regional title and have a top five finish at the states,” said coach Drown.,