WISCONSIN RAPIDS -- With one mile to go, Declan Gregg knew it was time.
Time to "enter 'The Arena.'"
A powerful close gave the Aquinas senior a Division 3 boys state cross country championship on Saturday afternoon at The Ridges Golf Course.
Gregg finished with a time of 15 minutes, 52.7 seconds to beat out Crandon's Taylor Karcz (15:59.0) at the front of the pack to capture the individual championship as the Blugold boys were fifth as a team.
The seniors Gregg and Karcz were separated by just one tenth of a second at the 2-mile mark. That's when the Aquinas veteran knew it was time to go.
"With about a mile left we have a term for it, it's called 'The Arena,'" Gregg said. "I've been planning to take, take everyone out in that mile."
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Gregg did just that in pulling away to the championship. He led at the 1-mile mark by a little more than a second over Karcz and the gameplan was to come out strong and set a pace he knew he could keep but expected others couldn't.
"I just wanted to hammer it at the start to take them out a little fast, because I knew I was able to handle it," Gregg said.
But Karcz hung around and stayed within striking distance of Gregg before the Aquinas senior capped his career with a run to remember to join Zachary Wilhelmy (2006) as the only other Blugold to win a WIAA Division 3 state title.
Overall the boys scored 161 points to finish behind Cedar Grove-Belgium (98), Prentice/Rib Lake (126), Solon Springs/Northwood (145) and Pardeeville (157) in the team standings.
Senior Thomas Gorman finished 27th for the Blugolds (17:04.7), junior Kaleb Azene was 58th (17:48.6), junior Oliver Buck came home 92nd (18:27.0) and senior Roger Flege was 106th (18:42.7) as the final scorer for the team.
It was a strong day overall for the Blugolds as the girls team was second in Division 3 team competition, falling in a tight battle with Kohler by three points (9598) with Westby third with 122 points.
Sophomore Emily Bagniefski was the fastest Aquinas runner, taking 15th in 19:52.6 with freshman Sanjana Musafir finishing 19th (20:08.5). Junior Alexa Myre was 40th (20:37.9), sophomore Caitlin Wengel finished 43rd (20:46.9) and senior Tenny Makepeace came home 72nd (21:27.7) as the last scorer.
Junior Elizabeth Curtis led the charge for Westby by taking 12th with a time of 19:43.9. Sophomore Addison Evenstad was 32nd (20:26.7), sophomore Molly Hamilton was 45th (20:50.3), freshman Hannah Hagen was 53rd (21:00.5) and senior Natalie Miller completed the course in 85th (21:48.5) as the final team scorer.
Dodgeland's Mallory Kohn won the race in 18:08.4.
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