Photo by Noah Clooten
The Devils Lake cross country team has its sights set on continuously greater things.
Every year, it’s about building the program up to a level higher than the year before. The success is determined by individual accomplishments; in cross country, personal achievements are a reflection of the program’s growth.
And that’s the way Devils Lake head coach Nick Kavli views things.
“We do individual goals with these kids,” Kavli said. “We have a wide range of kids, not only from grade, but ability. So we break it down, really, for them to set their goals.”
The Firebirds have a roster of 67 runners, comprising 41 boys and 26 girls. Kavli has been leading the program for nearly a decade, with assistant coach Laura McLaurin at his side the entire time. With a wealth of experience on their side, the Firebirds are striving for excellence.
“We work well together,” Kavli said of coaching the team with McLaurin. “And I’m happy with the program. The kids that show up own the program, and they want it to be good for them. And we do what we can to keep the bar high for them.”
The Devils Lake boys are led by Zane Bennett, who was their top runner last year as just a freshman. Now competing in his sophomore season, Bennett is working towards not only making the state meet for the fourth straight year, but making some real noise there.
“We’re gonna watch a lot closer what it’s gonna take for him to get an all-state this year,” Kavli said. “It’s nothing that’s out of reach, but it’s definitely a goal for his.”
Sure enough, Bennett was Devils Lake’s top performer in the first four meets of the season.
In the Orriginal Invitational, where the boys placed 11th out of 22 teams, Bennett finished 28th out of 169 contestants with a time of 18:08.66. He had a similar time in his first meet of last season, before he eventually went on to break 18 minutes in every subsequent meet. That included a personal record of 16:38.9 at the EDC Championships.
In the second meet of the season, the “THUNDER” Cross Country Meet, the Devils Lake boys placed first out of 10 teams. Bennett was third overall out of 91 runners. He posted a time of 17:07.55 — more than a full minute’s improvement from the first meet. He also led the Firebirds in the third meet, the Carrington Cross Country Meet, along with the eighth annual Grahams Island Invitational that Devils Lake hosted. He finished second overall in the meet.
The boys are filled out with a strong group of senior leaders. Kavli mentioned Adam Sobolik and Noah Azure as the runners who should fill in right behind Bennett. As for the four and five spots, it’s going to be an ongoing competition among Ben Larson, Grant Quam and Gerardo Sanchez.
“They’re good leaders,” Kavli said. “They’re good kids.”
At the first competition, those spots went to Sanchez and Larson. Sanchez outran Azure, coming in third among Devils Lake runners and 63rd overall. Sobolik was second for Devils Lake and 47th overall. Azure was fourth and 72nd, while Larson was fifth and 104th.
More kids got the chance to compete in the second meet, where Bennett, Azure and Sobolik all came in the top 10 overall. Aiden Ackerman put his name into the fold with a 15th-overall finish, while Sanchez and Larson held steady at 20th and 21st overall, respectively.
The third meet stacked up similarly: Bennett, Azure, Sobolik, Sanchez, Larson, in that order, with Ackerman narrowly behind in 16th place.
The girls, meanwhile, are younger and less experienced than the boys. But Kavli believes in the talent they possess.
Junior Aubrie Lebrun is the Firebirds’ oldest leader on the girls’ side.
“She spent a lot of time training in the offseason,” Kavli said. “Hopefully she’ll shine for us.”
Lebrun finished 99th out of 158 runners in the first meet, then 29th out of 68 in the second one. Besides her, Kavli said it’s a bit of a toss-up in the girls’ depth chart. Freshman Dottie Goss has been one of the Firebirds’ fastest runners since she was in seventh grade, but she’s also been challenged by current eighth-graders Tenley Triepke and Riley Schmiess — both of whom had strong track seasons in the spring.
That position battle was on full display in the second meet, when Schmiess finished first overall out of 68 runners, while Triepke finished fourth overall. Goss was narrowly behind, in eighth place. The girls’ squad placed second out of six teams.
“There’s a lot of competition there between some eighth, ninth and 10th graders for those four or five spots,” Kavli said. “But it’s good that there’s that competition there; it just pushes the whole group at practice.”
Goss was the girls’ fastest runner at the first meet, coming in 46th overall with a time of 22:16.80. It was more than a full minute faster than her time at the same meet in 2023. Like Bennett for the boys, she set her personal record at the EDC Championships last year, with a mark of 21:24.8.
Goss’s eighth-place finish in the second meet this year came with a time of 21:26.14, falling barely short of her personal record. She just keeps improving. But so do Schmiess and Triepke.
In the third meet of the season, Schmiess finished fourth overall while Goss was right behind her in fifth. Lebrun finished 16th. Schmiess was the Devils Lake girls’ top runner at Grahams Island as well, coming in second overall with Triepke in third.
The continued improvement and competition should be a learning opportunity for the Firebirds, as they look to build up experience to get better in the long-term. This is how Kavli approaches things with any kids, boys or girls, who are relatively inexperienced at the unique sport of cross country.
“We just throw them in there and tell them, ‘Take it easy. Have fun. Learn from us,’” Kavli said. “The sport, the competition itself, is a long race, and your [season] in cross country is pretty long, too. You just get through your first year, figure out what to do if you haven’t done a lot of running in the past, and you’ll grow from it in time. Every mile they put in is gonna get them that much better. And they’re always surprised, from one year to the next, how much they grow.”
Once kids start to get some mileage from the running they do in cross country, track and field and during the summer, Kavli and McLaurin start to break down their pace. They examine the runners’ training pace and interval pace, and how that relates to their race pace. It gives kids a realistic idea of where they might end up in the fold when it comes to the actual competition.
And the official results, in the end, are something Devils Lake just wants to keep improving upon.
“We want to make sure that we are a team that can get some all-EDC on a regular basis, and we have been doing that for a while now. Get some athletes in all-EDC,” Kavli said. “And then we’re looking at expanding the all-state. We put a couple in there a couple years back for the first time in like 20 years.”
On the girls’ side, they’re still looking for the first all-state runner in many years. The quest hasn’t been conquered yet, but Kavli likes the way things are trending.
“We’ve always had that goal, and I think we’re there,” he said. “I think the talent’s there. I think the numbers are there in the eighth-through-10th grade to see some girls go all-state for the first time in a lot of years.”
But it doesn’t stop there. The ultimate goal is to have Devils Lake consistently churning out all-state runners — not just a one-time or rare thing.
All of it comes down to the work these athletes and coaches put in, though. The results at these meets are shaped by the practices and their habits during all the time in between.
“The other goal that we have is just promoting a healthy lifestyle,” Kavli said. “Good running. Good nutrition. Good sleep. We see high school sports as an extension of the classroom, here to better their lives. And we take time talking about all that stuff, too. But there’s definitely a competitive nature here as well.”
