Cougar cross-country aiming for another state berth

Campbellsport cross-country is a family.

Both figuratively and literally.

The Cougars boys team, led by two sets of brothers, are once again one of the top teams in the state and have plenty of experience behind them this time around.

It started three years ago when twins Brody and Logan Nolan were freshmen. Logan took seventh at the WIAA Division 2 sectional at Portage and Campbellsport finished just a single place away from qualifying for state.

Logan went on to finish 97th at the state meet.

The next year, Brody took fourth place at the same D2 Portage sectional, which qualified him for the state meet.

Brody placed 65th at the state meet.

“I think it was my sophomore year at state when Brody made it individually,” Logan said. “The rest of the team wanted the same thing to happen to them and we did that. The following year we made it as a team. The first time in like 40 years.”

It was 39 years, to be exact, since Campbellsport had qualified as a team, back in 1984.

The Cougars qualified as runners-up at the same Portage sectional last year. Campbellsport had three runners finish inside the top 10. Both Nolan brothers and freshman Garrett Pickering, who placed fourth individually.

“Without Logan and Brody, I don’t know where I would be,” Garrett said. “My freshman year I came out and they were always right in front of me and it definitely helped me in practices to keep up with them.”

At the state tournament last year, Campbellsport placed 15th with Garrett leading the way in 61st place. The team agreed that having experienced the atmosphere was vital.

“The atmosphere is a lot more [intense], everybody’s a lot more focused than regular meets,” Logan said. “Obviously it's the last meet of the season and so everyone is trying to do the best they can. And all the fans and everybody from across the state on the sidelines, cheering on, it’s completely different.”

The Cougars lost two runners off of last year’s team to graduation in Aydan Meilahn and Jon Thelen, who were usually the No. 4 and 5 runners.

“They were a big reason why we were able to go to state last year,” coach Mike Kulibert said. “They were solid four and five runners that really helped the group.”

Kulibert, who was recently inducted into the Campbellsport athletics hall of fame for his work with the cross-country program, said there was uncertainty whether the team could replace the lost production.

The team had Sawyer Dirmeier and Trent Dieckman returning as seniors as well as Noah Bobb and Caleb Siebauer back as sophomores, who all showed signs of improving heading into this season.

Siebauer emerged as one of the biggest offseason improvements on the team.

“I never expected Caleb to be running as well as he has,” Kulibert said. “Just a credit to him for all the work he did in the offseason to get ready for this.

“He ran last year as a freshman, had some knee problems and didn’t run as well as he expected. He came out for track season and had a pretty good track season, took a week off and started working on cross country over the summer. He wanted to be with the Nolans, with Garrett Pickering and thought that he should be there. And he put in the work to be there.”

The rest of the team also continued to improve. Dirmeier was the fifth runner and a counting score at the conference meet, which Campbellsport won, last week at St. Lawrence Seminary.

Another unexpected bonus for the Cougars came in the form of junior Gavin Pickering, who had played football his freshman and sophomore years. 

“The big piece of the puzzle was if we could get Gavin to come out,” Kulibert said. “I knew what he could do in track and I was confident in what he could do in cross-country so right up until the start of the season, I was wondering whether we had the pieces.”

Gavin, who did cross-country from fourth grade through eighth grade, said he started running with the team during the summer when the guys would text each other and run as a group, but he was still convinced he was going to do football.

By the end of the summer, the team had persuaded him to get back into cross-country.

“We all hold each other accountable,” Gavin said. “No one is going to let anyone fall behind. We push each other. Lots of words of encouragement. 

“In the summer, texting each other, ‘When are we going to run? Can we get a schedule with all of us together?’ I mean that’s what got me into this sport to be honest. I was pretty convinced about doing football again this year, but they got on me this summer and here I am now.”

The team said they estimate that they ran more than 300 miles over the course of the summer, running five or six days per week the entire offseason.

“That’s usually the spring meeting focus: run during the summer,” Kulibert said. “It’s going to pay off in fall. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. 

“This group of guys, this is the hardest working group I have ever had.”

Gavin jumped in immediately as a contributing member, finishing sixth overall and third on the team in the first meet at Kettle Moraine Lutheran. Since then, he has finished as high as second on the team with a PR time of 17:16.3.

“We didn’t really know where he was going to be,” Garrett said. “Was he going to be like our fifth guy? Would he be up by me? We didn’t really know.

“He gives it everything. Probably tries harder than me for sure. At the Nightfall Classic he gave it 100 percent, crawling to the finish basically.”

With the improvements from the returning runners and the addition of Gavin, Campbellsport has put itself into position to have a good shot to return to state. 

According to an athletic.net simulation of the D2 Waupaca sectional, Campbellsport is projected to finish second, just one place behind Winneconne. A top-two finish at sectionals would qualify the team for state.

Kulibert said the team has been laser focused during practices, creating a race plan and executing this year.

“It’s been quite an easy season in terms of motivation,” Kulibert said. “These guys are so self-motivated. They are students of the game. They look at stats online and they formulate their plans for what they want to do and usually go into a meet with a good idea of what they need to do.”

Siebauer echoed that, saying that the team puts in a lot of time to educate themselves on the competition that they will face going into races.

“I would agree, I mean we do a lot of research,” Siebauer said. “We’ve beat Kohler. We’ve beat Port Washington. We don’t get to face the top teams in the state unfortunately because they’re out West, but I think we could go hand in hand with them.”

The Cougars have eight legitimate varsity-level runners, which several of the runners said creates a practice environment that not many programs around the area can replicate.

Bobb, Dirmeier and Dieckman all have had their times count in at least one race this year and all have season-best times near 18:15.

“We push each other a lot more because we are all at the same level, at least the top five,” Dieckman said. “And then me, Sawyer and Noah are at the same level and so we are all pushing each other and so that helps us to run more on the weekends and our off time and to put in the miles.”

Both the Nolan twins and the Pickering brothers said that sometimes there is extra competition between themselves to finish the fastest, but the main advantage has been creating team chemistry and holding each other accountable.

“It definitely helps being brothers,” Brody said. “We all hang out outside of school too and we live, [the Pickerings] are pretty much neighbors. That helps too.”

Garrett and Gavin are both part of the storied Campbellsport wrestling program, so they are used to being teammates, but Gavin said cross-country is different.

“It’s definitely unique,” Gavin said. “We wrestle together, but it’s not the same because we are different weight classes, different this, different that. 

“He’s a lot quicker than me. He’s blown me out of the water multiple times repeatedly. We aren’t always battling out for place but, you know, we go home, talk about it. In the car ride after the meet, we’re talking about it. We’re always together. Always competing together.”

Kulibert said that he has coached a number of wrestlers over his time with cross-country because an athlete has to be a hard worker in order to be successful in both sports.

“Jerry ‘Sarge’ Marking, who ran the wrestling program for many years, always told me the two hardest sports to participate in are wrestling and cross-country,” Kulibert said. “I think it’s true. Running 16 or 17 minutes, as hard as you can, with no timeouts and no breaks [in cross-country]; and then wrestling is just an exhausting sport.”

The success of the past few cross-country seasons has been building for about six or seven years, when most of the current team began running. For some, it was a way to stay in shape for other sports; for others, they knew early on they wanted to run competitively.

For the Nolans, it was fifth and sixth grade, respectively when they picked up cross country.

“I didn’t start until after [Logan] ran his first race in like sixth grade,” Brody said. “He was pretty good so I said why not try it.”

The Pickerings both started running in fourth grade. Siebauer said he started in fifth grade.

Siebauer said he saw the Nolans as being a role model for him when he was in middle school, which made him want to continue with cross-country.

“I started running because I was good in the mile,” Siebauer said. “Then I looked up to these two in eighth grade and it kind of stuck ever since.”

Campbellsport’s boys cross-country program was a force in the 1970s and 80s, qualifying for state seven times in 14 years. 

Now, the momentum is back and it seems like it’s back to stay. Kulibert has 16 boys in the program. Garrett said he hopes he can continue to help the program grow.

“It’s cool to see programs grow,” Garrett said. “Typically when they have success they will continue to have success so we’ll see where the team is in a few years.”