The JV girls have been having great fun running this year. At a recent meet they take off in great form. (L-R) Katrina Axtell, Maggie McMillan, Sarissa Falk, Amber Todd, and Mara MacDonell.
We headed down to Proctor for the final meet of the season before the important Section 7A championships Thursday, October 28 at the Cloquet Country Club. Twelve Class A teams showed up for the meet, about half of the total who will be running at Sections. All the Iron Range teams were missing, as they had their conference championships the next day. In addition, a number of teams were resting some of their runners, especially those who were sick or injured. Since we are generally healthy, and our top runners were anxious to meet some of the other top runners one last time, we had a pretty complete turnout. The addition of the four Class AA schools from the Duluth area meant the pace would be fast.
The 120-girl field of varsity and JV runners didn’t waste any time getting started in the cold and windy weather. Team leader Ailee Larson started strong with the lead pack, consisting of five AA runners and three girls from Esko’s state-rated Class A team. Senior Anna Schield was near the front of the main pack. In the middle of the pack, Shelby Ahrendt led the rest of our varsity group, while our talented JV girls were running well at the back of the varsity field. On the second of the three laps, Ailee looked strong and comfortable, leading the class A part of the field. On the last lap she dropped back a little, probably the combined effect of our hard pre-section training and a low-level virus that had bothered our entire team on and off the last month. She regrouped with her best of the field kick, earning third place in 16:26.
Above: Joey Chmelik gives a thumbs up during the last home meet at Pincushion. He finished his Proctor race in 20:28.
Anna ran steady, just missing the medals, placing 11th in 17:41. Rapidly improving freshman Audrey Summers had her strongest race of the year, 24th in 18:56. Just behind were Shelby in 19:04, Matea Acero in 19:09, and Cheyenne Sorlie in 19:34. Sara Schield and Kara Ramey were a short distance back in 20:06 and 20:16 respectively. Senior Katrina Axtell led our JV girls in 20:59. Katrina concluded her four-year career with at least a two-minute improvement in every race and earned a position as an alternate on our Section team. Just behind was the rest of our JV team– Maggie McMillan in 21:10, Mara MacDonell in 21:25, Sarissa Falk in 22:01 and Rachel Todd in 22:01+. Our JV girls won the team title for Class A teams, and were only behind Duluth East’s huge AA JV team overall. The varsity girls placed second, behind the Crosby-Ironton girls who we haven’t seen all season, but are in our section this year.
Left: In the combined varsity and JV field of 120 runners at Proctor, Freshman Audrey Summers had her strongest race of the year, finishing as the 24th JV runner in 18:56.
The varsity boys’ race was also going to be a good tuneup for Sections. Matt Welch of home team Proctor had finished right behind Viking leader Kieran Scannell at Sections last year and had run a fantastic 16:02 at the Lake Superior conference meet last week. That was almost a minute faster than Kieran’s PR. Was that for real? Could Kieran run with him? Senior Josh Ensign was kicking it in gear, aiming for a top 10 state qualifier next week. We were also challenging junior David Bergstrom to move up to a slightly higher level of pain tolerance and stick with Josh as long as possible.
Kieran, Matt and state AA competitor Matt Kero of Duluth Central-Denfeld quickly separated from the field on the first of three laps. They dropped Matt Kero on the second lap, but he fought back on during the third lap. Kieran made what was, in retrospect, probably a tactical error by pulling the other two through the last half mile of the race. Theysurged by him in the middle of the 200-yard climb before the 200-yard flat finish. Without enough time to respond, Kieran finished third overall and second in Class A with a fine 16:52, the third meet in a row that he has run that exact time–a time that should earn all state honors– when we get there. And a valuable lesson was learned in the process.
Meanwhile Josh ran a PR 18:13, placing seventh. David hung on gamely for 2½ laps, and was rewarded with an 18:22, a big PR and in the medals at ninth place. Senior Darren Waha did a great job running just behind Ben Seaton, 19:46 and 19:52 respectively. A short distance back Joey Chmelik and Daniel Ahrendt had fine runs, 20:28 and 20:46 respectively. The boys also finished second behind a surprisingly strong Crosby-Ironton team that provided the best display of pack running I’ve seen in a long time, with all seven of their runners between 18:00 and 19:00.
Meanwhile, a different drama was unfolding with our JV runners. When our younger runners seem strong enough, we often move them up to the JV race distance at Proctor. I try not to give them too much notice, as the whining can get pretty intense as the move from 1+ miles to 3.1, along with the much tougher competition, can be intimidating. We instructed seventh grader Pete Summers to go out with junior Alex Ditmanson, while seventh grader Will Seaton ran with senior Sebastian Schnobrich. It actually went pretty well for all involved. Alex ran his best ever 21:29, with Pete right behind in 21:40. Meanwhile Seb broke 24:00 for the first time, running 23:49, outsprinting Will’s 23:50. In between, Daniel Ditmanson closed out his four-year career with a solid 23:02. The boys were second to East Central, who actually ran their varsity team in the JV race.
The meet closed with the shortest, fastest junior high race of the season, 1.1 miles. Varsity/JV ninth grader Drew Christiansen hoped that dropping down to the JV race would lead to a win. He learned that lots of people were thinking the same thing, although he did finish third in a fine 6:28. Nate Carlson ran 7:08; Sean MacDonell and Roman Schnobrich were together in 7:35 and 7:40 respectively. Fletcher Kasell and Owen Cruikshank had their best runs of the season, 8:13 and 8:19 to complete the team scoring. The boys finished third in the team scoring. Ava McMillan and Julia Larsen were our only competitors in the girls’ junior high race, with Ava earning a medal with her 8:09 time.
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