I'm Phil Knee for WRCO.
Yesterday, I attended Richland Center Ithaca's cross country practice and spoke with the
three state qualifiers, including Clayton Lee, Ryan Stadler and Grace Fretz, who hear their
comments this morning on WRCO Sports.
Clayton Lee joins us.
Clayton, how does it feel to get back to state this year?
It feels nice.
It feels really good and I'm really proud of myself.
What was your best race this year?
Probably conference.
That's where I had my best time and that's where I put it all on the line for.
What did it take at sectionals?
There were some pretty fast times there, weren't there?
Yeah, there was.
I just had a keep of good mindset and they focused and really pushed myself.
I always wonder what goes through a runner's mind during the race.
Are you just focusing on straight ahead or are you trying to conserve energy or what are
some things you're talking about?
Any ways I can cut the course that I can, anyway I can just gain on that next guy that's
ahead of me.
What about when you're running on your own, like when you're practicing in the offseason
do you listen to music or what goes through your mind?
I just listen to music.
Okay.
You put in quite a few miles in the offseason, did you?
Yeah, I put about 250 miles in over the offseason.
Wow.
You must love running.
Yeah, I really do.
Yeah, that's awesome.
When you get back to state, so you've had a little experience there, what do you expect
from the course Clayton when you get there?
There's some decent hills, I just got to just stay with a pack and just keep moving up
and hopefully I can get in the top pack.
So you have Ryan there with you, do you as teammates try to kind of look out for one another
or how do you go about it?
We look out for each other, it's fun having another person to run with, especially at
state.
So you're representing at state, you've been there before, I'm sure you have some goals
this year, some areas where you'd like to finish, do you have a number in your mind?
Not really a number, but I kind of want to be with Ryan, he's finished close to him again.
Uh huh.
It's got to be good to have a partner and somebody in practice to push all the time too,
isn't it?
Yeah, it's really fun to have Ryan.
And you're looking at next year boy, you got to be optimistic for the team next year,
aren't you?
I'm really excited for next year as well, having only one coming up and you have a really
good shot of the team state as well.
Great.
I'm good to be excited about it and congratulations at a good year, good look at SAID.
Thank you, you too.
You bet.
Ryan Stadler is our guest, Ryan, congratulations on making it to state, does it feel different
than last year?
Uh, not really, I mean, same thing, kind of same process of qualifying, I did a little
better this year.
We hope to get some more guys, but yeah, it was about the same.
What made did you set your personal best this year?
My best was at Riverdale, um, 1653, yeah.
That's a little bit flatter course, so that it's a little bit of a different, doesn't it?
Yeah, it does.
It's a lot flatter.
There's a lot of good times there, a lot of people, a lot of good competition, so it's
a little flier.
It's usually a really good PR course for the year.
You guys did so well last year, I think you kind of set really high goals for yourselves
this year, didn't you?
Yeah, um, yeah, it was high goals, you know, we were trying to win more meets, the same
amount of meets, and we hope to make it to state as a team, but ultimately fell a little
short of that.
The team did suffer through a few injuries this year, didn't it?
Yeah, yeah, there were some bad weeks where we had, you know, half our runners and, uh,
some of our runners had set the whole season there at the very beginning they got injured,
so.
So you're going to state, what's the secret when you go at state getting off to a good
start?
Uh, it starts out really fast, because there's just a ton of fast people there, so I'd
say, pace yourself for the first mile and then just kind of hang in there the second
and give it all you got the third.
How often somebody like Clayton to run with, is that, uh, push it a little bit harder
in practice each and every night?
Yes, absolutely.
He's a, he's a great runner, um, helps in races too, you know, we can kind of key off
each other, uh, pace wise.
I think, uh, you're involved in the musical, if they're not mistaken, we're going to talk
you about that later this week, but, uh, man, how do you divide your time up?
Uh, it's, it's tough, it's tough, you know, sometimes it's like two hours across country
and then three hours of musical after that, so, you know, he's just got a work hard, I
guess, persevere through it and yeah, it's going well, so what's the order of business
this week?
Uh, you guys go up and, and stay overnight for state or do you scope that morning?
Yeah, we go up, um, the day before, Friday, and then we'll go up, we'll do, we'll eat lunch,
maybe do a fun activity, do a small, little easy practice the day before and then the
next day we'll head over to, you know, the rapids and run.
You've had really good weather this year, it has to be, uh, feeling good that way, and
it looks not too bad for Saturday too, right?
Yeah, yeah, it's looking good for Saturday, I think in the 50s somewhere, hopefully not
as cold as last year though, you know, the weather year, it's completely unpredictable,
last year was freezing, um, yeah, but it looks like good weather.
Sounds good, well good luck, as you get there to a state, we hope to see some really
good times for you guys.
Yeah, thank you.
Ryan, stand there joining us in this report from WRCO Sports.
Grace Fred's drawing this grace, congratulations on making it to state.
Thank you.
What did it take this year for you personally?
Did you have to really dig deep to kind of get those goals?
Yes, um, you did a lot of training in the summer with my sister, ran a lot of miles throughout
the summer and just kept the work up in practice after that.
I had to wonder having your sister on the team, did that motivate you to do better than
her all the time?
It did push me a little bit more to have a little bit extra push to beat her, but she
was also just amazing to run with her by my side.
Did she beat you though this year?
She did beat me once at a meet, uh-huh, uh, basketball, so that was, that was motivating
also, but also cool because we're really close in time, so it's fun to run with her by
my side.
Now we've talked to you during the sharks, you know, over here at the Simons, how much
does swimming in your swim background help you running?
Um, it, I feel like it does help a lot because it also takes endurance to swim and then
also when I was, I was injured a bit in the summer and then swimming was some cross-training
I could do, which it helped, was helpful.
Your first trip to state, are you a little nervous going in?
I am a bit nervous running on my own, but it will be cool to be going against such great
competition and just an awesome experience to have.
Tap into some of the knowledge that Ryan and Clayton have to kind of see what they've
experienced there.
Yeah, and, um, Kaylee Peterson too, I've talked to her a few times before because she was
there the last couple of years and I got to go up there with her and watch the races,
so that was cool.
We could have experienced it on my own now.
I was going to say, as a spectator, uh, did you sit there and think, ah, this is, that
would be really cool if I could be here something.
I, I did.
It was, it was something that I always wanted to do.
So I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to last year, it was a really hard season,
but really put in the work and hopefully it'll go great.
What's the, the key if you're going to have a good race here, getting off to a good start
or, you know, how do you, how do you pace yourself?
How do you set it up mentally?
Um, I, I usually start pretty fast and then I slow down, which isn't the best, but it's
just what's been working for me throughout the season and just trying to keep an even
pace.
I did good at that, but start out, I usually start out faster and then slow down and then
get faster in the last mile, but I don't know.
Whatever works for that individual, right?
Whatever works.
Usually there's a lot of like excitement in the first mile so that pushes you to go
faster and then you kind of settle into your pace for the rest of the race.
Indeed.
So this is a great thing for, for the team and for the school and everything and, and
you mentioned Kaylee, uh, she kind of, uh, set the tone, kind of set the bar high for
everybody to follow and kind of get motivated, isn't she?
Yeah, she really motivated.
I remember in eighth grade, I watched her just do awesome.
I think it was the first really good girl runner here for a while and that just really
motivated me to work hard and try to get here.
You have some good numbers.
You mentioned your sister, someone to class people and you have some eighth graders coming
to next year.
So the future is pretty bright for the program.
Yeah, I think the future is going to be great.
I think next year is going to be an amazing season to watch.
The boys team is going to be great.
I think the girls team is going to be awesome too.
We'll play one some meets.
Well, Grace, it's been a pleasure to get to know you and good luck here this weekend
at State.
Thank you.
It's great to talk to you too.
Congratulations to the Richland Center, I think across country runners, they'll be running
at State and Wisconsin Rapids on Saturday, Grace Fretz, Ryan Stadler and Clayton Lee.
The bad start to the buck season continued Monday night with the one nineteen one hundred
eight loss at Boston.
Milwaukee will stay on the road to play at Memphis against the Grizzlies on Thursday.
Here is Damian Lillard.
It's definitely frustrating because what we do, we're supposed to do, you see what the
first game looked like and then at moments of the last two games, you see when we do what
the game looks like.
So it's definitely frustrating.
I just think it's one of those things right now where you've got to usually have to stay
in the fight.
Freddie Freeman homered for the third straight game and Walker Bueller pitched another world
series gem as the Dodgers beat the Yankees for two for a three nothing lead in the fall
classics.
No firm promises yet, but Bob Euker might return to the broadcast booth for another brewer's
season.
When you pass 90 years of age, it becomes a year to year decision.
Many Milwaukee players were disappointed when their season ended abruptly and in many cases,
that was because they wanted to get the legendary play by play man, a world series title.
On an interview with CBS, Euker hinted at one more season of final decision has not been
made yet.
The Iowa Hawkeyes are making a change in quarterback for Saturday's home game against Wisconsin.
Brendan Sullivan is listed as the first string quarterback on the depth chart this week.
The previous charter Kate McNamara has been inconsistent so far on the year.
Here's Badgers coach Luke fickle.
Make sure we're getting to the physicality of what it is that we need to do and knowing
what it's going to be like going over to to Iowa and playing another night game.
It's going to be a tough hard fought physical football game that in a lot of ways probably
going to come down to the fourth quarter following MRI and a closer examination, the injury
picture for Jordan Lovy is more optimistic according to some Matt LaFleur talked at
his press conference yesterday about an NFL update that said that love wasn't as bad as
originally thought.
I have no idea.
I'm about to go talk to Flee and Nate right after here so but he seemed like in good
spirits.
So I don't know where that information comes from quite frankly and I'm surprised.
I hope it's not coming from inside our building but we'll see.
The Packers get set for a showdown with the Lions on Sunday.
I'm Phil Nee for WRC Sports.