There was a time this year where another state cross country appearance wasn’t a given for Haley Mason.
The Chi-Hi junior missed two weeks of action during an abbreviated fall with a foot injury but hit the ground running in her return, hustling her way to state after taking fourth last Saturday at Division 1 sectionals.
Mason opened the year strong with a victory at a home triangular hosted at Irvine Park. But following that win on Aug. 27, Mason was out of the lineup with the injury, missing Big Rivers Conference events at Menomonie and Rice Lake.
“I put in a lot of miles this summer, and I think I was scared after that two-week break,” Mason said after Saturday’s sectional. “I hadn’t run in two weeks so it was a little uneasy coming back.”
Chi-Hi junior Haley Mason advanced to the Division 1 state cross country championships for a third year in a row after a fourth-place finish on Saturday at sectionals hosted at Lake Wissota Golf Course.
She made her return on Sept. 26 at a conference event in Hudson and took fifth before setting a new personal best time of 19 minutes, 30.4 seconds at another home event for the Cardinals at Lake Wissota Golf Course on Oct. 1. Mason has finished no worse than fifth in any of her races this fall and has been fourth or better following that first race back. A fourth-place finish at the Big Rivers Conference meet was followed by a third at last Wednesday’s sub-sectional in Rice Lake.
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Mason made her return to Lake Wissota on Saturday, a course she has run on many times and enjoys for its terrain and relative flat layout. The junior executed her race plan flawlessly, going out with the lead pack and staying there as she finished fourth in 19:06.8, the second fastest time for a girls runner in the history of the Chi-Hi program.
“She dropped probably more time than anyone in our sub-sectional for today, and she’s feeling strong,” Chi-Hi coach Roger Skifstad said after Mason’s performance. “She knows this course. It’s her third year, she’s a junior and three times (running at sectionals) and if you count the sub-sectionals she’s been in some big races. So she doesn’t worry about that. This was a big race for her but she does what she can do and we talk through it.
“I was hoping for a 19:10-19:15 and she was 19:06 and if you do that you qualify and she does that next week (at state) hopefully and she’s a good leader. She’s a captain for us. Not a lot of Haley Masons walk through the school doors.”
Katie Faris owns the top time in program history with her run of 18:57.1 from the 2016 sectionals, also contested at Lake Wissota Golf Course.
Mason’s role in the program has evolved as she has become more of a leader for a girls team that had just one senior in action at sub-sectionals, giving out valuable advice to others to find a race plan and pace that works for them instead of doing what others are.
As a freshman, Mason finished 105th at the Division 1 state championships with a time of 20:26.1 before improving to a 71st-place finish in 19:59.0 in 2019. But it’s not realistic to compare times from those years to this weekend since they will have been contested on different courses. The boys and girls races of all three division state championships have been held at the same place in previous years with The Ridges Golf Course in Wisconsin Rapids holding the event.
But this Saturday that will not be the case as the three divisions will be contested at different sites in three different sessions per site in an effort to limit the amount of people together amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Division 1 races are set for Arrowhead High School in Hartland, just outside of Milwaukee. Mason will run in the third session of the day at approximately 3:30 p.m. along with other runners from her sectional.
The course Mason will see this week is much flatter and faster than the one she navigated in previous years in Wisconsin Rapids. But even though it’s a different course, Mason plans on keeping her same approach in training this week leading up to her final run of the fall.
“I think there’s a lot of pressure taken off now that I’ve run this (sectional) race obviously because it was really nerve racking this whole week but I’m excited,” Mason said. “It’s different because it’s not the same course (and) I won’t be able to compare those times but I’m looking forward to running on that new course and maybe PRing.”