Three North Shore boys, Isaac Swanson, Brenden Seipke, and Noah Smith qualified as individuals for the 2019 Minnesota boys’ state cross country meet, and all of them had good races at the meet held Saturday, Nov. 2 at St. Olaf College.
Swanson, a senior, placed 25th with Seipke, a junior, literally on his heels with a 26th place finish in the Class A field. The two were clocked in 16:39 and 16:39.7 for the 5,000-meter (3.1 mile) race. It was the best time of the year for both of them, and for Swanson, who was out with an injury for much of the season, one can only wonder how fast he could have run if he’d been healthy for the whole season.
Noah Smith, a senior, placed 81st out of 157 finishers with a time of 17:20.1.
The winner of the Class race was Geno Uhrbom of Greenway/Nashwauk/ Keewatin.
Geno, a junior, was the defending state champion, but he was ranked fourth coming into the race. He lost four meets in a row but was maybe sandbagging as he won going away, crossing the line in Class A meet record of 15:27.
Two other northern Minnesota runners did well at state. Cameron Stocke, a ninth-grader from Virginia, Minn., placed sixth in the Class A race with a time of 15:51.1, and Luke Olson, a senior from Ely, placed seventh, crossing the finish line in 16:04.5.
Oliver Paleen, a senior from St. Paul Highland Park, was the Class AA boys’ champion, finishing in 15:25, two seconds faster than Geno, but he had runners five seconds back pushing him.
The top girl from northern Minnesota was Ava Hill from Mesabi East. Hill, a senior, ran 18:38.9 for the 5,000-meter race and placed fourth in the Class A field.
The girls’ Class A winner was Morgan Gehl, a junior from Murray County Central. Her winning time was 17:53.5.
North Shore Storm
While both the North Shore Storm boys’ and girls’ teams narrowly missed going to state, both teams received a Gold Team Academic Award, meaning each had a grade point average of 3.75 or higher.
Dan Hebl, North Shore Storm assistant coach, was named Section 7A boys’ assistant coach of the year.
While North Shore Storm coach April Wahlstrom loses some talented kids this year, the girls’ team should be one of the favorites at sections next year, and the boys have talent but need to put some miles in during the summer so they can once again return to the state meet as a team.
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