Rugby boys peeking at right time ahead of state XC meet

Submitted Photo Rugby’s Brayden Green (center) competes in the East Regional Championships at Cooperstown Golf Course on Oct. 11. The Panthers finished second as a team and Green placed fifth to earn all-region honors. Photo provided by Rugby cross country assistant coach Jennifer Bartsch.
It’s every coach’s dream to have their team performing at their best entering the most important time of the season.
Rugby cross country coach Bill Jansen is experiencing that dream at the moment with his boys team as the Panthers get set to compete at the Class B State Meet at Parkhurst Recreation Area in Jamestown on Friday, Oct. 24.
The Panthers are fresh off back-to-back second-place finishes at the Booster Club Invitational on their home course at Rugby Golf Club on Oct. 4, and a week later at the biggest meet to date: the East Regional Championships at Cooperstown Golf Course. Rugby finished just 10 points back of Devils Lake in Rugby and finished behind third-ranked Kindred at regionals.
“On the boys side, we came in not knowing what to expect,” Jansen said. “We lost three seniors last year that were pretty instrumental in our fifth-place finish last year and so we came into the year knowing we had Brayden Green, we had an all-stater coming back, so that was a good thing, but we didn’t know what we had coming back with him. We are fairly young. We don’t have any seniors. Over the season, we have had kids who stepped up. We’ve shown good progression over the season. We’re running as good as we have all year, which is what you hope for when you get into it.”
Rugby’s performance at the regional meet catapulted the Panthers into the top-five rankings in the coaches’ poll for the first time all season, coming in at No. 4. Rugby bested Valley City at the regionals, which was ranked No. 4 leading up to the meet.
The Panthers won the Carrington Cardinal Meet on Sept. 2 for their lone meet victory of the season, and also have four second-place finishes. Junior Brayden Green is the top runner in his fifth year with the program. Green earned all-region honors for the third year in a row with his fifth-place finish at the East Regional Championships. Injuries threatened to derail his season early, but now that he is healthy, he is back to running the way he had hoped for all year.
“I feel like I’ve kind of been having a rough season,” Green said. “At the beginning of the year I was struggling with some rib issues. I was cramping in my ribs and it was causing me to drop out of races or just run much slower. That was a big issue, but I feel like in these past couple of races, I’ve been able to bounce back and hopefully looking forward to a good last race.”
Green was unable to compete at the Orriginals Invitational to open the season, but made his debut at the Hatton-Northwood Invitational, but finished 21st with a time of 19 minutes, 41.79 seconds, well below his average pace. He’s returned to form since, completing races in the 17-minute area in all but one of the last eight competitions he’s been a part of. He won three consecutive races earlier in the season and has two other top-five finishes. His best time this season was 17 minutes flat at Carrington.
Green said he’s put a lot of work into improving his speed in the offseason and will now work on his endurance to raise his level even more. In his mind, to be a better runner, it’s more about the work you put in versus the equipment you can purchase.
“What goes into it is what people don’t watch,” Green said. “It’s the waking up before school. It’s the staying after practice. It’s the running during the summer, running during the winter. It’s the out-of-season, out-of-practice, out-of-meet stuff that’s truly important. You’ll find guys talk about these special shoes they wear and these special products, but it truly doesn’t matter if you’re not consistent and you’re not strong and you’re not persistent and you don’t have patience in the game. It’s really about showing up day after day and choosing how you want to do things and being smart with your training. I’m big on the idea that you’re not just a player of the game, you should teach yourself the game and always looking for new innovations and ways to boost your training.”
There is more to Rugby’s success this year than just Green, though he has played a crucial part. The Panthers got a shot in the arm with the return of freshman Zeke Puente. The Panthers thought they had seen the last of their teammate after his first season as a seventh grader when he and his family moved to Washington, but he rejoined the team early into this season when they moved back to the area and he has been a welcomed addition since. He posted his two fastest times of the season in the past two races, running an 18:42 in Rugby and an 18:40 at regionals for the second-best times for the Panthers.
“When he was a seventh grader, he was one of my best friends,” Green said. “We would practice every day together. We would train during the summer and winter. It was so amazing having him and when he left it was devastating for the team. He raced at state track for us and he was there for our lows of placing at the bottom of the 4×8 at state track and he was there for our highs of qualifying. Losing him was very weird and felt like a big loss.”
According to Jansen, Puente’s return sparked seventh-grader Jeremy Van Steenvoort to join the team. Steenvoort had Rugby’s third-fastest time at regionals, finishing the race with a personal best time of 18:47.
Jansen understands the monumental task it would take to dethrone Bowman County, a program that has won the last five state championships and are the top-ranked program in the state heading into the meet and have been all season. Five of the top 10 runners in the individual rankings are from Bowman County, including Jonah Njos, Gabee Sarsland and Warner Bowman, who ranked 2-3-4. Northern Cass’ Owen Johnson is the top-ranked runner in Class B. Njos is the two-time defending state champion.
Rugby in 2011 is the last team not named Bowman County or New Town to win a state title in boys cross country.
“Nobody’s going to catch Bowman County unless something very negative happens, which isn’t something I would wish on anybody,” Jansen said. “I want everybody to have a great race. That’s what I want to see on every team. They just have very, very solid kids – the best in the state – and they are very deep. As far as Kindred, we ran against Kindred at the regional and hadn’t really seen them. We weren’t way back from them, but you see these teams and you see results all year long and where kids run and kind of know if your kids can get to a certain level. On the boys side, Bowman’s got kids in the 15s and some in the 16s and we’ve got one kid in the 17s and a few in the 18s and 19s, so where we’re ranked right now -fourth – I’d be ecstatic if we hit that mark. New Town’s always got a good batch of runners. They’ve got kids who have run better than we have during the year. We’re kind of the next one up and teams like Valley City, Shiloh Christian, Hillsboro/Central Valley, those are the teams we’ll really be competing with for that top five, hopefully fourth. We always hope for higher, but if we got fourth, that would be awesome.”
The Panthers finished fifth at state last year behind Bowman County, New Town, Kindred and Killdeer. Green placed 15th to earn all-state honors, finishing the race in 17:11. When it comes to competition, Green loves going up against the best of the best.
“I love facing them,” Green said. “During the beginning of the season we run against a lot of smaller schools and that sometimes leaves me with a lack of competition in smaller races. When I get the chance to race these faster schools, I get super excited and it’s fun. I like to run fast and race hard and not just go out there and win. I’m looking to run fast and be good.”
The boys race is scheduled to start at 2:45 p.m.