All Decade Team - Girls Cross Country

By: 
Jason Ferguson
Like their male counterparts, this team is chock-full of solid runners, and there were a lot of good nominees to be on the team. The girls’ teams haven’t been as top-heavy as the boys team, as there are no state champions, but the state-championship winning teams have had tremendous depth and that made for some tough choices in picking the team. A couple of the girls were no-brainers. It gets difficult after that.
 
Mallory Delmont - Class of 2020 - I’ll take Delmont as the team captain, as she has seemingly been placing at cross country meets since I moved to Custer two decades ago. OK, it hasn’t been that long, but Delmont was excellent at cross country and running varsity in middle school, placing second in the conference meet in 2014 and placing third in the region and seventh at state that same year. The following year she won both the conference and region meets before placing third at state. In 2016 Delmont placed third at the conference and regional meets before placing sixth at state and in 2017 was third at the conference meet. Her junior year Delmont was fourth at the conference meet and second at the region meet before placing 11th at state, and last fall she was third at the region meet and fourth at the state meet. That’s a pile of accomplishments, right there.
 
Karley Konkol - 2012 - Konkol had a lot of accomplishments in cross country across two decades, but in this decade alone she was second at the conference meet and third at the region meet before placing seventh at state in 2010. She also placed third in the region meet the following year. Combine that with her accomplishments the previous decade, and she belongs on this team.
 
Tori Glazer - 2018 - Arguably the greatest female athlete Custer saw in the last decade, Glazier makes the first of three all-decade lists (spoiler alert: she was better at basketball and track than cross country) with a cross country career that fired up with a third place at the region meet in 2013. In 2014 Glazier placed first at the conference meet and second at the region meet and followed that the next year with a second-place finish at both the conference and region meet and third-place finish at the state meet. Injuries derailed her in cross country somewhat after that, but she still managed to place at or near the top 10 at the region and conference meets in 2017.
 
Kadense Dooley - 2022 - Although she hasn’t graduated, I put Dooley on this list for what she has already accomplished. The junior-to-be placed sixth at the region meet in 2016 before placing in the top 15 at both the conference and state meets and eighth at the region meet the following year. In 2018 Dooley finished third at the region meet and fifth at the conference meet. Dooley didn’t place as high at those meets this past fall, but you can’t fault the body of work to this point.
 
Sierra Oesterling - 2023 - Part of a strong running family, Oesterling made a splash on the cross country team her debut season of 2018 when she placed second at the conference meet, won the region meet and placed eighth at state. Last fall, despite only running part-time, she finished sixth at the conference meet and seventh at the region meet. Unfortunately for Wildcat fans, they won’t get to see where her talents take her as she gets older, as the Oesterling family moved this year. Despite that, she edges out honorable mention girls such as Mattisen Kelley, Clara Sedlacek, Josie Dvorak and Tayler Carlson for the last spot on the team.
 

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