Mariah Wondra had one goal in mind while competing for the fourth and final time at the WIAA State Cross Country Championships.
“My goal is to be on the podium,” the Bonduel High School senior said. “That’s been my goal for years, and I haven’t gotten there yet.”
She got her wish Nov. 1 after placing sixth in the girls Division 3 race at the meet, held at The Ridges Golf Course in Wisconsin Rapids.
Wondra needed a top-10 finish to earn a spot on the podium, and she did that with a time of 19:23.7, good enough for sixth place.
Meanwhile, her teammate, Lillian Burrack placed 63rd in 21:09.7.
Another four-time state qualifier, Gillett’s Braydyn Wendorff, turned in a time of 17:24.4 to place 35th in the boys Division 3 race.
Bonduel
The sixth-place finish is Wondra’s best performance in her four years at state.
“It’s such a relief,” she said. “I’ve been circling this race since last year. It’s my first podium finish and I’m really excited.”
Wondra said she was able to run with the leaders for most of the race.
“Halfway through the race, that top pack really broke off, and I was kind of on my own,” she said. “That was mentally hard. Some people were passing me, and I was able to pass them back. I did a lot of races like that throughout the year.”
Wondra’s places and times improved each year at state.
“We get inspired by older runners and in turn we inspire the younger ones,” she said. “I looked up to runners when I was younger, and I try to inspire the girls younger than me. We have a program that’s motivating each other with a positive environment.”
Distance running is nothing new for Wondra.
“I’ve been running for over half my life,” she said. “I’ve been in cross country since third grade. I started with a lot of siblings in it. Our team has historically been well, so it’s cool to see older teams be successful and then come to high school.”
Wondra isn’t finished running, as she still has Bonduel’s track season next spring and will then head to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which recruited her to join the Panthers’ track and cross country programs.
“I’m from a small Division 3 school, so I’m really excited to go compete at the D1 level,” she said. “I connected with them recently, and I’m excited to go with them. I don’t want to treat it like it’s too much different. I don’t want to overwhelm myself. I want to go out and keep running my race.”
Bonduel doesn’t have any team or individual state champions, but the boys team qualified for state in 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2023 and 2024, and the girls team qualified in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 2023 and 2024.
That success isn’t lost on first-year coach Jacob Grenke, who ran cross country as a student at Gillett High School.
“She’s really calm and a very hard worker,” he said of Wondra. “She’ll work harder than anybody else that you put next to her. You put it in front of her, and she’ll go after it. She’s been training really hard, and she had this goal all year. This is what she wanted.”
Grenke is excited about having Burrack, a freshman, for three more seasons.
“She’s like a young Mariah,” he said. “She’s already running faster than Mariah was at this stage. I’ve got lots of big plans for her.”
Grenke attributed much of the program’s success over the years to his predecessor, Diane Schnell.
“She did an amazing job building this program to what it is now,” he said. “We get a lot of support from the community and the kids work hard.”
He said he knew a little bit about what to expect while coaching runners at state for the first time.
“I ran cross country 20 years ago for Gillett and we went to state on the same court,” he said. “I knew a little about what to expect. I couldn’t ask for anything more out of them.”
Gillett
Like Wondra, Wendorff competed at state for the fourth time.
‘He’s a hard worker in practice and he carries out race plans to perfection,” coach Bill DeJung said. “That’s his strength. His freshman year was with the team and this is his third year of qualifying as an individual. He was seventh last year and he raced beautifully.”
