Speaking of Sports

By John Fragodt, Sports reporter

The Minnewaska Area fall sports teams are off to great starts and, in fact, two of the teams have made the top-10 state rankings for their particular sport.

The Minnewaska Area girls cross-country team, fresh off its team title at the LPGE Invitational last Monday, was ranked eighth in the most-recent girls Class A cross-country team polls.

The top two teams from last year, Staples-Motley and Wadena-DC, did not make the most-recent poll, but they were included in the preseason poll so they are sure to be strong again in the postseason.

Nori Song and Lauryn Ankeny are the leaders for the Laker girls cross-country team, but the strength of the team is its depth and there are at least 5-7 girls that can help lead the Lakers in each meet, including Nori Song, Lauryn Ankeny, Jillian Deutsch, Maia Larson, Piper Citrowske-Lee and others.

In 2021, the Lakers placed second to earn a state team berth, while SM was first and WDC third.  In 2022, SM was first and WDC edged the Lakers for second by eight points.  Last year, SM dominated the Section 6A meet while WDC edged the Lakers again by 18 points for the second team state berth.

It should be another exciting Section 6A Cross-Country Meet this year at WDC, Oct. 24.

•  In girls tennis, the Lakers have won eight-straight matches to improve to 11-3 overall.  Even the losses have been close for the Lakers, who moved to third in the state Class A girls tennis polls. 

The only losses for the Lakers this year were to Rock Ridge (4-3) and Litchfield (4-3) at the Litchfield quadrangular and to Minneapolis Washburn (5-2) at the Alexandria quadrangular.

 During last week’s action, the Lakers edged Osakis (4-3), which is ranked second in state, while Litchfield is ranked fourth in Class A.

One week earlier, the Lakers beat Staples-Motley (4-3) and Pine City (4-3) at the Pine City quadrangular and S-M is ranked seventh in state and Pine City is ranked fifth.  That means Minnewaska Area has already defeated three top-10 state teams this season.

Yes, the Section 6A Tourney should be very tough this year, but the Lakers will definitely be in the thick of things.  Two of the top players in state are the first singles’ players from Litchfield and Osakis.  That also means the Lakers may try to go with two really strong doubles’ teams for the section individual tourney.

Leading the way so far for the Lakers girls tennis team are Olivia Danielson (16-2), Rachel Rankin (16-2), Megan  Thorfinnson (15-3) and Alia Randt  at first singles (13-5).   

Go Lakers!