SPASH girls win state cross country title By MIKE KEMMETER Special to The Gazette WISCONSIN RAPIDS - The last time the Stevens Point Area Senior High School (SPASH) girls cross country team won a state title, some members of this year's team hadn't even taken their first steps yet. Now they can run faster than anyone else in Wisconsin. For the first time since 1987, the Panthers can call themselves state champs, after capturing the Division 1 crown at the WIAA State Meet last Saturday in Wisconsin Rapids. "They were all little ones," said coach Mike Olson, who was leading SPASH's program 15 years ago. "It's amazing to me, that it's a lifetime to them. It doesn't seem like that long to me." SPASH scored 98 points, enough to unseat four-time defending champion Waukesha West, which finished second with 114 points. Whitefish Bay was third with 136. "It was everything we hoped for," Olson said. "We have kind of a different running style than Waukesha West. We like to seize control and hold on. They like to run consistently and pick people off at the end. They just couldn't catch us." The Panthers took home the title after putting three sophomores in the top 15, in the team standings. Emma Tauchman was third (11th overall) in 15:02, Zoe Browne finished seventh (15th overall) in 15:09 and Kara Tauchman was 14th (32nd overall) in 15:23. Freshman Jenny Groshek was SPASH's No. 4 runner, finishing 23rd (50th overall) in 15:35 while senior Emily Virant was 51st (89th overall) in 16:10. Also competing for SPASH were senior Jackie Kropp, who was 96th (136th overall) in 16:45, and freshman Katie Munck, who finished 112th (152nd overall) in 18:03. "Emma, Zoey, Kara and Jenny have been doing it all year. Probably the most underrated person on our team is Emily. All season long, she's done an outstanding job of hammering people. She's never been intimidated." After the race, the team gathered in an area around the finish line, awaiting news on whether they had won. When word finally came, the girls jumped, screamed, exchanged hugs and cried tears of joy. "I was so shocked when we found out, I started bawling and I couldn't stop," Browne said. "It's great. Everybody did. I'm just really, really excited." Emma Tauchman said, "It's the greatest feeling. This whole time we've been talking about how we wanted it so bad and we got it." The first-place finish comes a year after the Panthers took ninth at state. The team has been dominant since then, winning each of its meets this year and SPASH was ranked No. 1 in Division 1 entering the race. "It's a goal we set here last year," said Olson, who also gave credit to assistant Cindy Solinsky. "We knew we had a bunch of young kids who would be back and we wanted to get on that medal stand. The hard work they put in over the summer paid off." Besides the 1987 state title, SPASH finished second three times, from 1981 to 1983. Back then, the new champs had not been born yet. * * * The standings read "5. Stevens Point" and the look on members of the SPASH boys cross country team showed they were hoping for better results from their Division 1 race last Saturday. Led by three-time individual champion Chris Solinsky, the Panthers finished fifth out of 16 teams, scoring 181 points. Waukesha Catholic Memorial took home the team title with 125 points. Hartland Arrowhead (141), Kenosha Tremper (142) and Neenah (151) also finished ahead of SPASH. "I said at the beginning of the season, five or six teams were better than us. We worked hard, they were determined, and we became a team that could come down here and be competitive," coach Donn Behnke said. "I'm so proud of what these guys have done and how hard they worked. It's hard to look at this as a disappointment." Solinsky literally ran away with his first-place finish, breaking his own state meet record with a time of 14:54 and beating runner-up Dustin Fier of Hudson by 57 seconds. Like their senior leader, who said he felt "dead" coming down the home stretch before an excited crowd cheering him on, some of the Panthers had a tough time in the final mile. "Our guys really ran strong in the first part of the race. But after the second mile, we didn't finish well," Behnke said. "Usually we are a good team in the last mile." The Panthers second through fourth runners were all juniors - Tom Winkelman was 18th (29th overall in 16:34), Mickey Katz took 26th (48th overall in 16:47) and Luke Langhorst finished 63rd (101st overall in 17:24). Senior Justin Young was SPASH's No. 5 runner, taking 73rd (112th overall in 17:32). Seniors Brad Winkelman, who was 97th (137th overall in 18:04), and Josh Yach, who was 106th (146th overall in 18:30), also competed for the Panthers. "Tommy Winkelman ran a fantastic race. Mickey Katz ran just how we wanted him to run," Behnke said. Solinsky won't be back next year, but he believes SPASH will keep its long streak of state meet appearances alive. "I wish we would have finished better as a team," he said. "The main core of it is juniors and hopefully they can come back. They want to." A winner of seven state championships and four second-place finishes, SPASH's program is put on a higher level than other teams in the state, and that can lead to big expectations. "Things just unraveled," Behnke said of the last mile of the race. "It's unfortunate that because of our previous success, people think we will win every year."