The Amherst High School boys cross country team finished 14th at the WIAA Division 3 State Meet
at The Ridges Golf Course in Wisconsin Rapids Saturday, Oct. 29.

In the boys team’s first trip to the State Meet since 2000, junior Cole McKenzie
finished 70th in 18:01.22 to lead the Falcons.

“I’m happy with how the race went,” said McKenzie. “The
course was hilly, but it was just fun to be able to run with the best guys in
the state and have really, really good competition.”

Sophomore Adam Wise was right behind in 79th, followed by
junior Sawyer Eiden (94th), junior David Rieck (106th), senior Seth Barnes
(110th), junior Trent Miller (135th) and junior Robert Johannes (150th).

“I thought we did pretty well,” said Amherst
cross country head coach Donald Rosene. “The guys were really, really nervous
today and they talked about how hilly the course was.

“And taking all of that
into consideration, we haven’t been here since 2000, I’m very impressed with
the guys overall,” he said.

Amherst finished
with 275 points, while Darlington had 68 to win the
State Title over La Crosse Aquinas (87) and Durand (118).

“We didn’t face a lot of injuries this year, but we still
had our adversity,” said Rosene. “We went through our ups and downs as far as
our times, and it just didn’t seem like we turned it on until about conference.

“If you go back and look, our times were very average, and
then conference rolled, and all of a sudden, we really
brought it on right at the end,” he said. “And the season overall, because of
it, was good.”

“We set a lot of goals, and our biggest one was to get to
state, after losing (out) by seven points last year in Sectionals,” said
McKenzie. “That kind of pushed us, and we met our goals.

“So next year I know that we’re hoping to get to state
again,” he said. “And we’ll still have to keep working really, really hard to
do that.”