Ben Seaton finished 31st out of 140 boys in the varsity competition to lead the Viking boys’ team to a 7th place finish in the team competition at Eveleth.
We were a little nervous on the ride over to Eveleth for the big Golden Bear cross-country meet. With the big turnover from last year’s successful boys’ and girls’ varsity teams, over half of this years’ varsity runners had to step up from the junior high ranks. It’s a great opportunity for the young runners to develop quickly, but running against mostly older high school kids is intimidating, especially when 15 of the 20 teams from Section 7A would be there. Head Coach April Wahlstrom and I worked out strategies for each of the runners, and then shared them with them on the long ride over.
After a good warm-up, the varsity girls took the starting line in the 100-competitor field. Based upon strong practices and a good showing at our pre-season home meet two weeks ago, we sent team leader sophomore Audrey Summers out fairly hard, followed closely by eighth-grader Matea Acero. Juniors Sara Schield, Sarissa Falk and Mara MacDonell settled into the middle of the pack, while newcomer Cailan Carpenter started cautiously at a manageable pace. Audrey moved up steadily, finishing 24th in 18:38 for 2.5 miles, a minute and a half improvement from last year. Matea hung on gamely, finishing 2 places back in 18:44. Sara had an excellent run, improving by 45 seconds from last year, finishing 39th in 19:30. First year ninth-grade runner Emma Olfson had a breakthrough race, running 21:19. Mara and Sarissa finished right behind her in 21:23 and 21:41, nice improvements from last year and two weeks ago. Cailin ran 5 minutes faster then her debut race two weeks age, finishing in 23:00. You should have seen Emma and Cailin after the finish; they were excited enough to go out and run the course again! The girls’ team ended up edging out Eveleth for 7th place in the team standings.
Joey Chmelik was the second Viking at the Eveleth Golden Bear cross-country meet, finishing 36th overall.
Like Audrey did for the girls, junior captain and team leader Ben Seaton set the pace for the boys’ varsity team in the 140-runner field. He started out in the top third and moved up steadily, finishing
Audrey Summers led the Vikings with a 24th place finish at the crosscountry meet in Eveleth. Audrey was 90 seconds faster this year than last year, a big improvement.
31st in 19:28, a 40-second improvement over last year. Sophomore Joey Chmelik kept Ben in sight the entire race, finishing 36th in 19:42, an improvement of 1½ minutes from last year. Ben’s younger brother, eighth-grader Will, set the initial pace for our main group of runners. Fellow eighth-grader Pete Summers snuck ahead of our main group early and had an outstanding race, finishing the 5-kilometer (3.1 mile) race in 21:27. A short distance back, Nate Carlson ran 22:03, Alex Ditmanson 22:07, Will in 22:15, Drew Christensen 22:16 and Sean MacDonell in 22:30. All five of these guys recorded season’s bests and/or improvements from last year, with Sean’s being the biggest improvement. Just behind this group, first-year runner Everett Hommes ran 23:26, Roman Schnobrich 23:57 and Owen Cruickshank 24:07. Our young boys (1 senior, 1 junior, 3 sophomores, 2 freshmen and 4 eighth-graders) finished 9th in the team standings.
Finally, we got to the combined junior high race, which included boys and girls from AA and A teams. Of course, a lot of our junior high racers had already run in the varsity races, but we still had a lot of talent here. Lars Scannell, who had just joined the team a week ago, took off like a shot with the leaders and maintained a steady pace to run 9:20 for 1.5 miles, our best time in this race since older brother Kieran ran it a couple years ago. He finished 7th in the 90-runner field.
We had four girls in the junior high race, all newcomers to cross country this year. Abby Seipke led them, finishing 7th in 10:33. Lily Gruber-Schulz was next with a fine 11:48 time, good for 25th, while Ruby Walsberg and Jasmine Swenson worked together to finish in 12:42 and 12:52 respectively.
Next up for the Vikings is the Milaca Mega Meet, the largest high school cross country race in the U.S., with over 3,500 runners competing.
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