Wausau West Cross Country sends four athletes to State

Wausau West sent four runners to the WIAA State Cross Country Championships on Saturday, Oct. 31. Two girls, sophomore Anna Colwell and junior Olivia Benes, and two boys, senior Eli Akey and junior Charlie Scharer, qualified for State after finishing in the individual top 5 in their sectional races.
Colwell has been a standout for West cross country all season. She won both the WVC meet and her sectional in dominant fashion, finishing 37 seconds ahead of second place in the conference meet and 31 seconds ahead of second in the sectional. Her strong run continued into State where, with a time of 18:25.5, she finished 12th out of 184 finishers.
While Colwell’s finishing times are impressive enough, what makes them more so is how she’s worked up from not being able to run only a few years ago.
“The summer going into eighth grade I got double foot surgery,” Colwell said. “I only ran two races in eighth grade cross country, that really set me back. I’m really happy that I was able to come back from that because if I didn’t put in the work and have my dedication, I would’ve stayed at that place I was.”
Colwell is a multi-sport athlete, also being involved with basketball, soccer and track at Wausau West.

2026 marks Colwell’s first State qualification in cross country, a milestone she appreciated as a testament to the hard work she’s put in athletically.
“It’s a very exciting moment for me,” Colwell said. “It shows that all the hours I’ve put in over the summer, waking up early and going on those runs even when I didn’t want to, it had a good outcome.”
Olivia Benes qualified for State after finishing 7th in the sectional with a time of 19:50, 5th among non-team qualifiers. She improved upon that time at the State tournament. Her time of 19:44.1 put her in 78th place overall, a top half result among the finishers.
Benes also qualified for State for the first time in 2026, and the qualification meant more to her after physical struggles impacted her performance last season.
“My iron was really low last year,” Benes said. “That was really hard because I put in all the work over the summer and I wasn’t getting the results that I wanted, I was kind of just hitting a wall during the race. It’s really cool to come back this year and be that much stronger.”
Benes has been involved in cross country since middle school, but outside the sport she has a wide array of hobbies and interests.
“I like to read, fantasy and Harry Potter stuff,” Benes said. “I do a lot of baking and I mountain bike competitively.”
Charlie Scharer qualified for State after finishing 9th overall and 5th among non-team qualifiers in the sectional meet with a time of 16:44. At State, he ran a time of 16:53.0 which placed him 78th overall among 189 finishers. Like with Colwell and Benes, 2026 was Scharer’s first year where he qualified for State in cross country.
Despite the role running has played in Scharer’s life and the success he’s found within it, running had nothing to do with how he initially joined cross country.
“I originally joined cross country because I thought it was cross country skiing,” Scharer said. “That’s what my parents told me or what I interpreted. But before that I ran a lot and I did a few 5Ks, there’s one every year I still do to this day and I’ve been doing it since I was five.”
Scharer said what’s kept him in cross country through high school is partly the success that he and his team have found, but moreso the caring atmosphere that his teammates and coaches create.
Throughout the season, Scharer said that the possibility of advancing to State was never on his mind. Once the sectional came around, though, qualifying became not just a present thought, but an inevitability.
“When I was on the bus going to the sectional meet, I was thinking the only possible outcome would be going to State,” Scharer said. “I was going through every outcome that could happen, but I was ignoring the ones where I wouldn’t make it. I think that pushed me a little bit, but [also] my friends and running with them has pushed me in the summertime.”
Finally, Eli Akey qualified for State after finishing 2nd among non-team qualifiers and 6th overall in the sectional with a time of 16:28. He kept up a similar pace at State, finishing 59th with a time of 16:36.6. Unlike West’s other three qualifiers, Akey also made it to State in 2025, where he finished 24th overall with a time of 16:21.4.
Akey’s impressive season in 2025 may come as a surprise, given he ran all of it on a torn labrum he didn’t know about until after the season. Still, Akey says the biggest challenges he faces as a cross country athlete are the mental ones.
“Mentality is the hardest challenge by far,” Akey said. “Just getting through the runs each day and pushing hard in the races is always really tough.”
Akey has kept himself very involved with cross country and running since elementary school, even if his journey from there to being a two-time State qualifier didn’t always involve running.
“I started doing a run club in elementary school,” Akey said, “and then I joined [cross country] in sixth grade, but it was virtual, so I didn’t actually run. But then I came back in seventh grade and I just really liked the people, and now I stick with it because of the coaches and the family environment.”
Jason Myers and Rachel Tordsen, the cross country coaches at West, said that Akey, alongside Scharer, have embraced taking on a mentor role within that cross country family. For Akey, it’s always been his teammates, both those he looked up to and those looking up to him, that have driven his goals and made reaching State worth it.
“Since I was a freshman, I always thought about [qualifying] because we had upperclassmen that ran at State,” Akey said. “I was beating their times when they were in my grade, so I [thought] I could make it one day. And now qualifying a second time with other people is just amazing.”