By David Paulsen
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
A third-place finish by the Demon girls team highlighted the Burlington High School cross country runners performances at the Southern Lakes Conference Meet Saturday at UW-Parkside.
“The girls had a very solid effort to beat a very good Waterford team,” head coach Rick Koceja noted.
The girls tallied 99 points to edge Waterford by one point. Westosha Central dominated the meet scoring a mere 20 points. Westosha’s top five all finished in the top seven positions.
Burlington’s Kit Kocha, a junior, was one of only two runners to compete with Westosha. Kocha finished fifth overall over the 4,000-meter course with a time of 15 minutes 45.5 seconds. That finish earned Kocha first-team all-conference honors.
“Brittany Ehlen earned second-team all-conference with a gutsy performance,” Koceja said.
Ehlen, a sophomore, finished ninth in a time of 16:06.3.
“Last season, Kit placed 29th in the SLC and Brittany ran on the JV, so a vast improvement for both runners,” Koceja said.
The other runners to finish in Burlington’s top five were freshman Meta Ehlen (19th, 16:26.0), junior Aleigha Barry (32nd, 17:13.9) and junior Marah Zinnen (35th, 17:30.6).
In the 5,000-meter boys race, Westosha Central also dominated the competition, scoring just 23 points, with their top five runners all finishing in the top eight.
The Demon boys were fourth overall with 123 points.
A sixth-place finish by senior Mickael Pauly earned him first-team all-conference honors. Pauly was clocked in 16:59.2.
“Mickael continues to look strong as our No. 1 runner,” Koceja said.
Koceja added that both Kocha and Pauly put themselves in great positions at the start of the race and maintained those positions throughout.
Zach Wawrzyniakowski, another senior, was 18th overall in 17:51.6, sophomore Nathaniel Sibley 28th in 18:12.6, sophomore Ben Lois 34th in 18:47.4 and junior Noah Strohm 37th in 19:18.2 to round out the boys top five runners.
The SLC Meet concluded the regular season for the Demon runners.
Next up for both squads is the WIAA Division 1 sectional at Grant Park in South Milwaukee on Saturday. The boys race is at 10:45 a.m. and the girls race at 11:30 a.m.
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