Top: Peaking at the right time, the North Shore Storm boys’ cross country team won the Section 7A title and qualified for the state meet. From L-R: Kevin Viren, J.C. Holman, Jron Tamanaha, Isaac Swanson, Brendan Seipke, Noah Smith, Jake Paron, Leif Anderson, and Will Surbaugh.
Section 7A cross country meet was on Thursday, October 26 at the Cloquet Golf Course. The course was dry, the weather cool – it was a perfect day for a race.
The day started off with an exciting girls’ 5k race that left me sprouting more gray hair as I was consistently trying to score the meet in my brain to figure out if we were in first, second or third.
Ultimately, Proctor won with 79 points, and we tied for second place with Mesabi East with 81 points. To solve the tie the judges looked to the sixth runner. Isabel Schottenbauer was our sixth runner, and she finished ahead of the Mesabi East sixth runner, and we were awarded second place.
Ava Hill, from Mesabi East, won the race with a time of 19:07 and was over a minute in front of the field. Autumn Smith and Cedar Gordon had strong runs for us, finishing in fifth and sixth place with times of 20:24 and 20:31.
Claire Lavigne was back from her sprain and was an essential component of our team; she broke up a big pack of Proctor girls which helped the scoring to be so close. She finished in 16th place in 21:23. Louise Ramberg was just behind her in 21st with a time of 21:47. Kate Walsberg was our 5th runner in 38th place with a time of 22:37. Kate was followed by Schottenbauer in 22:54 and Maya McHugh in 24:03. With a second place finish, these girls earned an opportunity to compete as a team at the State Meet.
Below: Look who else is going to the state cross country meet! The North Shore girls’ team finished tied for second at the Section 7A meet, but the Storm’s sixth-place runner placed ahead of Eveleth’s sixth-place runner and the Storm got the nod to move on. From L-R: Maya McHugh, Louise Ramberg, Claire LaVigne, Izzy Schottenbauer, Kate Walsberg, Cedar Gordon, Autumn Smith and head coach April Wahlstrom.
The boys’ race started off equally as exciting. The gun went off, and runners went out hard, leaving some of our runners farther back than we wanted them to be. Luckily, they responded really well to directions while competing and moved up to get themselves back in the race and eventually go for the win.
North Shore Storm won the section 7A race with 52 points, and Greenway Nashwauk Keewatin finished in second place with 69 points.
Geno Uhrborn, a ninth grader, won the race with a time of 16:28. Jake Paron went out smart and worked forward and settled into second place at the mile mark. Paron finished in 17:05 followed closely behind by Noah Smith in 5th place in 17:17. Our next pack of guys finished pretty close; Will Surbaugh placed 12th with a time of 17:46, Isaac Swanson was 15th with a time of 17:51, and Brenden Seipke placed 18th with a time of 17:46.
Swanson and Seipke were the two who made up a lot of ground during the second part of their race to close the gap to help us win. Leif Anderson and JRon Tamanaha rounded out our team with strong finishes in 19:16 and 19:41. These boys also earned an opportunity to compete at the state meet which will take place on November 4 at St. Olaf College.
“We are looking to represent our section well with strong overall finishes at state,” said Coach Wahlstrom.
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