•  Song leads girls team with 71st place finish and Palmer is 66th for Laker boys

The Minnewaska Area cross-country team raced at the State Class A Cross-Country Meet, Saturday at the University of Minnesota.  Cotter edged Redwood Valley for the State Class A girls title by five points (116-121), while the Redwood Valley boys earned some measure of revenge by edging Luverne by five points for the boys title (86-91) with Cotter a close third.

The Minnewaska Area girls won the Section 6A title to earn a state team berth.  The Lakers finished 13th of the 16 teams with 249 points, which was also just 24 points back of seventh-place Staples-Motley, whom the Lakers beat for the section title.  Take it another way and the Lakers were only about 30 total seconds away from seventh place.  Yes, that’s as close as these competitions get!

Leading the way for the girls were Nori Song in 71st place with a time of 20:45 and Piper Citrowske-Lee, who was 81st in 20:55.

Zach Palmer also qualified to state from the boys team and he ran a time of 17:23 to place 66th overall out of 160 racers.

“I could not be more proud of my girls and Zach,” coach Jennifer Johnsrud said.  “Zach ran the best race of his cross-country career in my opinion.  His time may not have been his fastest, but for this course, it was an incredibly fast time.

“The girls ran really well considering it was everyone’s first state appearance, except for Lauryn (Ankeny).  Some of these girls are all of 13 years old.  A race of this magnitude can be overwhelming.  I felt like they competed well on this very difficult course.  We are extremely young and this experience will fuel our fire to continue to improve and make a run at it again in the future.”

The entire Minnewaska Area girls cross-country team returns next season, while the boys team will lose five runners to graduation — Ian Mills, Zach Palmer, Luke Hoffman, Ryan Koehntop and Chase Wacker.

State Meet

Audrey Brownell, of Staples-Motley, won the girls Class A title by seven seconds with a winning time of 18:17.  That was enough to help the Section 6A runners-up to a seventh–place finish at the State Meet.

Cotter edged Redwood Valley for the girls Class A state title, while Redwood Valley was second, Rochester Lourdes third and Minnewaska Area was 13th out of 16 full teams with 249 points, which was only 24 points away from seventh place.

With one girl coming through the finish almost every second, 24 points is about the equivalent of 24 seconds.

“With so many runners, it can be difficult to find the medium between not letting your adrenaline take over and starting the race too fast, or not getting out fast enough and getting boxed in,” Johnsrud said.  “In the state meet, there are very few seconds between a whole lot of places so a difference of 10 or 20 seconds is huge.”

Leading the way for the Lakers was Nori Song in 71st place with a time of 20:45 and Piper Citrowske-Lee in 81st place with a time of 20:55.

Lauryn Ankeny was next in 101st place (21:26), followed by Jillian Deutsch in 103rd (21:30), Sydney Ankeny in 112th (21:49), Maia Larson in 115th place (22:00) and Ella Larson in 142nd (23:03).

•  In the boys meet, Redwood Valley had two runners in the top three to place first with 86 points, just five better than runner-up Luverne (91 points) and 36 better than third-place Cotter (122).

Eric Semling, of Cotter, won the individual title with a time of 15:23, which was 12 seconds better than William Ahrens, of Redwood.

Zach Palmer qualified to state from the Laker team after placing ninth overall at the Section 6A Meet.

Palmer ran a time of 17:23 to place 66th overall out of 160 racers.  “I knew once Zach made it to state, he would make the best of this opportunity.  He was calm, cool, focused and on a mission to run his best,” Johnsrud said.

Section 6A team titlist Sauk Centre earned eighth at the state meet with 231 points and runner-up Bertha-Hewitt was 14th with 295 points.  The top section finisher was Carter Kjesbo, of West Central Area, who placed 14th in 16:36.

State Class A Cross-Country Meet

Girls varsity team results:  (1) Cotter 116  (2) Redwood Valley 121  (3) Rochester Lourdes 150  (4) United North Central 157  (5) Hawley 164, SC Cathedral 165, Staples-Motley 225, Heritage Christian 229, Carlson-Wrenshall 234, Trinity School 235, Greenway-Nash-Kee 236, St. John’s Prep 246  (13) Minnewaska Area 249, Canby-Minneota 250, Loyola-Cleveland 254, Mountain Lake-Comfrey 347

Girls top five:  (1) Audrey Brownell, SM 18:17  (2) Charlotte Meyer, Loyola-Cleve 18:24  (3) Sonja Semling, Cotter 18:49  (4) Margaret Duffy, SJP 19:04  (5) Valerie Quast, Loyola-Cleve 19:05

Minnewaska Area times:   (71) Nori Song 20:45  (81) Piper Citrowske-Lee 20:55  (101)  Lauryn Ankeny 21:26  (103)  Jillian Deutsch 21:30  (112) Sydney Ankeny 21:49  (115) Maia Larson 22:00  (142) Ella Larson 23:03 . . . (160 total runners)

Boys varsity team results:    (1) Redwood Valley 86  (2) Luverne 91  (3) Cotter 122  (4) LA-RP-H 146  (5) Heritage Christian 159, NW Nighthawks 160, Nova Classical 198, Sauk Centre 231, Hawley 242, Greenway-Nash-Kee 249, Litchfield 260, Loyola-Cleve 281,  South Ridge 282, Bertha-Hewitt 295, Mount Lake Area 303, Park Rapids Area 338

Boys top five:  (1) Erik Semling, Cotter 15:23  (2) William Ahrens, Redwood 15:35  (3) Kilen Cilek, Redwood 15:49  (4) Eddie Snider, Mounds Park 15:50  (5) Levi Dougherty, Heritage Chris 16:01

Minnewaska times:   (66) Zach Palmer 17:23  . . . (160 runners)

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