King girls are making a historic run
The cross country team is getting a pep rally.
That has a nice ring to it for Milwaukee King junior Margaret Froh and her teammates. This is new territory for the school, which has sent its basketball teams off to state with that kind of celebration for years.
Friday it will be time to strike up the band for seven girls who literally had a historic run last week.
“It’s really exciting just having the girls more in the spotlight,” Froh said. “Our team is so special.”
When the Generals qualified last weekend for the WIAA state meet, it marked the first time for a MPS school since 1982, when Milwaukee Bay View took 16th. The only other time a MPS team made it was 1979, when Milwaukee Madison took 12th.
According to longtime King coach Keith Zeise, neither of those teams qualified as a sectional champion. The Generals, on the other hand, won the title Saturday.
The team will run in the Division 1 portion of the WIAA state meet at 1:45 p.m. Saturday at Ridges Golf Course in Wisconsin Rapids.
“I sobbed,” said Zeise, who is completing his 20th season. “When the team scores went up there I was crying like an infant for sure. … I went through MPS at Bay View. I’ve always been around MPS kids. I’ve always been proud of the City.”
These days King carries the flag for the City Conference in a lot of sports. It has been that way in the cross country for the past six seasons as the Generals boys and girls teams won conference titles.
That didn’t lead to much of an impact for the girls outside the conference, though. From 2013-'15, the team was no better than ninth in the sectional, which includes many of the schools from the North Shore and Greater Metro Conferences. In 2016, the Generals climbed to seventh. Last year they were fourth and Aizta Romero qualified for state individually as a freshman.
All but one of those runners returned this season. Figure in the addition of two freshman, and King was poised to have a better season this year.
And to prove a point.
“MPS kind of had a bad connotation when it comes to going against suburban schools,” junior Hannah Olenchek said, “and I think this finally proves that’s not the case and that we can prove ourselves against others and make a name for ourselves after so many years of competing.”
Romero and Froh have been the team’s strongest late in the season. Olenchek, who was finally healthy after being hampered by injuries her first two seasons, led the way at a couple of meets early in the year.
From meet to meet, however, Zeise isn’t sure what the pecking order will be. At the sectional, Froh led the way by finishing with a time of 19 minutes 27.1 seconds on the 5,000-meter course at Lincoln Park Golf Course. She was followed by Romero (12th, 19:59.7), Olenchek (17th, 20:22.7), freshman Findlay Drabant (20th, 20:24.5) and freshman Payton Weiss (22st, 20:26.3).
Natalie Redding and basketball standout Kaye Clark didn’t score that day, but each has made the top five before.
It’s a good problem to have for a team that given its youth has the potential to contend for state berths for the next couple of years.
“We carry an MPS flag with the other MPS schools,” Zeise said. “We want to show the area and the state that Milwaukee kids, MPS succeed and can run fast.”