Senior Brooklyn Luebke capped her high school cross country career with a 5th place finish at the WIAA Division 3 State Meet on Saturday, her third-straight podium finish in her three-year cross country career with the Lancers.
Luebke finished in 19:54, seven seconds behind race winner Elsie Kmecak of Burlington Catholic Central. Out of the 151 girls in the 5K (3.1 mile) race, Luebke ran among the first ten runners throughout the whole race, and ran strong throughout, moving up into 5th place in the middle of the race and maintaining it to the end.
Coach Abbey Bubolz commented on Luebke’s race, “A podium finish after one of the most well-executed races I've seen was awesome. The road to state is not always smooth; this week it was a blessing for her to be able to finish her career at State, including top-5 finishes in the past 3 years. That is not an easy feat. Our prayer on the start line concluded with ‘…to God be the glory’. And, that's how she ran.”
Luebke was the lone MLHS runner advancing to the State meet, after taking second at sectionals in Manitowoc last Saturday. As mentioned, she ran strong throughout the race at State. Abby Bartel of Weyauwega-Fremont had taken the early lead and led almost to the end of the race, but a group of about 5 runners, including Luebke and led by Kmecak, which was about 15 seconds behind the two front runners at the 2-mile mark, made a push in the final mile to catch up, and the first seven runners to cross the finish line finished within 10 seconds of each other.
Bartel finished in second place and freshman Hannah Welch of Valders took 4th, one second ahead of Luebke. Boscobel took the girls D3 Team title; Valders was second. Full results are on pttiming.com.
Bubolz reflected further on Luebke’s MLHS cross country career: “(Brooklyn is) a 3-time All-Conference/Conference Champ, had 18 1st place finishes, has the 2nd fastest time in State Girls D3 5K history (her 18:55 from the 2020 State meet), holds the MLHS school record in the girls 5k (18:55), and won every meet she raced at Sheboygan Lutheran (undefeated there 6 times). But really, (she is) the most humble, caring teammate you could have.”
We congratulate Brooklyn on her great accomplishment at the State meet and a stellar Lancer cross country career, using her talents in praise and thanks to her Savior.
