This year’s Wellsville-Middletown cross country team will look to extend its long streak of state qualifiers with a small boys roster.

The Tigers have just four runners, all of them on the boys side. They are seniors Jonah Slovensky and Gage Marshall, junior Zackery Vogel and sophomore Shane Joles. All of them were members of last year’s team that didn’t lose any runners to graduation.

There are no runners on the girls team, which lost four-time state qualifier Bethany Slovensky and two-time state qualifier Jenelle Boeckelman to graduation. Bethany Slovensky, who is now attending State Fair Community College, was the Tigers’ lone state qualifier in the 2023 season and extended the team’s streak of having at least one state qualifier to 30 straight years.

Jonah Slovensky is back for his fourth and final season with the Tigers. Last year, he had three medals, finishing 15th in the Wellsville-Middletown Invitational, sixth in the Clopton Hamburger meet and fourth in the junior varsity race at the Linn Invitational. He also finished with a personal-best time of 20:04 in his 26th-place finish at the Eastern Missouri Conference meet.

Marshall, who also has been running with the Tigers since he was a freshman, picked up a seventh-place medal at Clopton and ran a personal-best time 20:56.4 at the EMO meet.

Vogel is back for his third year on the W-M cross country team. He ran a personal-best 21:56.8 at the Brian T. Simpson Invitational in Columbia.
Joles was the Tigers’ only freshman on the boys roster in 2023. His best time was a 22:34 at the EMO meet.

The Tigers begin their season on Sept. 9 at the Van-Far Invitational. Last year, they had three runners place in the top 25, including Jonah Slovensky, who came in 16th in the boys race.

The annual W-M Invitational is scheduled for Sept. 23 at the W-M campus.