Final race of high school career for seniors Ashley Watkins, Ryan McCue
The Mountain Lake Area (MLA) Wolverine Girls and Boys Cross Country teams competed in the Section 3A Meet yesterday (Thursday, October 29), at the Madison Country Club near Madison. The top two teams – and top eight individuals not on a qualifying team – advanced to state meet. The Minnesota State Class A Meet will be held at St. Olaf in Northfield next Saturday, November 7, with a first race starting gun time of 1 p.m.
The section run proved to be the final race of the high school careers of Mountain Lake Public High School seniors Ashley Watkins and Ryan McCue.
Out of 20 complete teams, the Luverne Cardinals won the championship with 71 points. Also moving on to state as a team is the second-place squad from Lac qui Parle Valley/Dawson-Boyd, scoring 80 points. MLA finished with 380 points for 15th place.
Luverne Cardinal junior Madi Schandelmeier ran the 5,000-meter race in 19:35.38 to take the girls’ individual title. Pipestone Area’s Angel Martens came in second overall on the 5,000-meter course with a time of 19:56.74. Cardinal freshman Gabi Ferrell finished fifth with a time of 20:13.73. Luverne seventh-grader Regan Feit was also in the top-10, taking ninth individually at 20:35.48.
In fact, six of the eight individual qualifiers are from this southern part of Section 3A. Pipestone Area sends Martens along with Livia Wallace who was seventh at 20:20.80. Meanwhile, Adrian, Murray County Central/Fulda, Heron Lake-Okabena (HL-O) and Windom Area will all have one girl running in the state meet. Adrian eighth-grader Moriah Bullerman was 10th at 20:36.00, Morgan Gehl of the Rebels entered the chute just behind her at 20:40.44 for 11th place, HL-O sophomore Rachel Salentiny clinched her third straight trip to state with a mark of 20:41.57, good for 12th and while Chrisianna Green, a junior at Windom Area, was 13th and received the eighth and final individual qualification at 20:45.48.
For MLA, seventh-grader Anika Fast was bumped up to varsity and was the first Wolverine girl into the chute, finishing 61st with a time of 22:59.72. Junior Liana Blomgren was 72nd with 23:19, Arli Schlabach finished 81st with 23:41, Sara Quiring (also a seventh-grader) closed with 23:52 for 87th, Elizabeth Linscheid (another seventh-grade runner) finished 94th with a time of 24:14, Ashley Watkins was 138th with 27:13 and Karen Soutthivong ran to 141st with a time of 28:57.
On the boys’ side, Lac qui Parle Valley/Dawson-Boyd and Redwood Valley will represent Section 3A after taking first and second with scores of 94 and 110, respectively. Murray County Central/Fulda (MCC/F) missed the state cut by just a single point, taking third at 111, while Windom Area was in fourth-place with 118. The MLA boys were ninth with 230 team points.
Winning the 5,000-meter boys race was Kurt TeBeest of Montevideo (the 12th-ranked runner in Class A), who won with a time of 16:44.77. Sophomore John Irwin of Windom Area was second with 16:50.30 while Pipestone Area’s Michael Suda took third at 16:57.15. Also advancing to state from the southern part of Section 3A were MCC/F senior Jack Erickson took sixth overall with a time of 17:10.07, and his classmate, Clayton Hartle, finished in ninth-place with a time of 17:12.43.
Crossing the finish first for the MLA boys was junior Tommy Kraemer, 21st with a time of 18:09.42. Freshman Ryan Blomgren finished 42nd with 19:01, Ryan McCue was 47th with 19:08, Emilio Garcia de la Cruz finished in 55th with 19:27, Andrew Fast was 65th with 19:38, Preston Xayachak finished 73rd with 19:46 and Emmanuel Fentanez was 84th with a time of 20:10.
Cross Country Co-Coaches are Matt Anderson and Kyle Blomgren.
