Above left: After a summer nursing a leg injury, Nate Carlson is recovering nicely and running well. Here Nate sprints for the finish line at the Hibbing Invitational, crossing the line in19:39 for 5K to break 20 minutes for the first time this year. Above right: Showing strong running form, Abigale Seipke finished 43rd at Hibbing to help lead the girls varsity to a 5th place finish at Hibbing. Abi ran 18:19 for 4K.
On Thursday, September 27, the Cook County-Two Harbors cross country team ventured to Hibbing for the Hibbing Invitational meet. This race has earned a reputation for being a very flat course and being very warm. This year we finally had great weather. The wind was calm and the temperatures were in the 60s. In other words, it was a perfect day for a cross country race. Our runners have decided that they don’t really like this race because of how flat it is. Most teams appreciate this but our Viking runners are so tough that they prefer the hills. We try to keep their perspective fresh on this meet so they can embrace the flats and try to run fast.
Some of you may be asking who is Optimus Prime? Several years ago, while running at a meet in Proctor, Minnesota a few of our runners found an old playground turtle (connected to a spring) in the woods. They decided to keep it, haul it to all of the meets, and turn it into their team mascot. The boys even developed a pre-race chant around it. Other teams (Proctor and Hibbing) admired this turtle from afar.
Once again Optimus Prime is back in possession of the Vikings’ cross-country team. The traveling “trophy” is awarded to either Hibbing or Cook County each year based on the total amount of time the boys and girls starting five runners accumulate at the Hibbing Invitational. Above, Sean McDonell and Will Seaton (hat) show their pride in winning back Optimus Prime.
First, Proctor stole it from the team while most of the kids were racing, then the Vikings took it back. Then Hibbing stole it. As coaches we didn’t want this to get out of hand so we decided that it would become a traveling trophy and had to be earned. Each race at Hibbing or Cook County became an opportunity for our runners to win the turtle back. To determine the winner we would add up the times of the runners on each team (top 5). On Thursday, our girls beat Hibbing by 2 minutes and our boys lost by 2 seconds. All in all, it was enough to win Optimus back!
Girls show great teamwork
So how did the races go? The event began with the girls’ varsity and junior varsity. We knew going into this race that this would be a good check in point to see how we are stacking against the competition for sections at the end of October. The teams we are keeping our eyes on are Esko, International Falls, Crosby Ironton, and South Ridge. The girls’ section has many strong teams and it will be a good challenge to even break into the top 3 at sections.
The girls finished a respectable 5th place with 133 points right behind South Ridge (128 pts). The first three teams finished in this order: Esko (57), I Falls (76), and Crosby-Ironton (100). When checking out the results it becomes obvious that although cross country has the reputation of being an individual sport, it takes a team.
Our girls have been packing up a bit more to help each other move forward. Sarissa has taken charge this season to be the girls’ frontrunner. She finished 13th overall with a time of 16:10.
Behind her was Sara Schield, 29th with a time of 17:18. Sara has demonstrated a strong ability to lead one of the packs and on this day she took charge of the pack with Matea Acero and Abi Seipke. Matea (32nd, 17:33) was coming off of an injury; she had instructions to hang behind Sara to help her ease back into racing. Abi fell back a bit but finish 43rd with a time of 18:15.
Our other pack that has been developing nicely and continues to move forward includes Morgan Weyrens- Welch, Maya McHugh, and Audrey Summers. Morgan and Audrey have been the steady leaders of this group and Maya has an amazing ability to hang on with determination and wait for the right moment. Joining them in this race was Alyssa Martinson who is a young runner that has continued to work hard and is seeing much pay off for this. Maya finished 4th for us in 37th place with a time of 17:47, Morgan was right behind her in 39th place with a time of 17:53, and Audrey finished in 18:19 and ran 7th for our varsity team in 45th place. Alyssa Martinson was our first JV racer and she finished right behind Audrey with at time of 18:19 and was 12th overall.
Our JV Girls team finished in 4th place beating Hermantown and Cloquet. Joining Alyssa was Meadow Adams (19:53), Ruby Walsberg (20:08), Mara MacDonell (20:09), and Cailan Carpenter (21:38) for the 4-kilometer race.
Boys led by Chmelik and Seaton
Next was the boys’ race. The dynamic duo of Joey Chmelik and Ben Seaton led the team to an 8th place finish out of 13 teams. They finished 21st and 22nd respectively with times of 18:20 and 18:25. Following these two was the rest of the varsity runners, with all who ran last year improving by 2-3 minutes this year on the same course! Levi Axtell was out recovering from patellar tendinitis. Our next runners included Nate Carlson (19:39); Pete Summers (19:44); Sean MacDonell (20:18); Will Seaton (20:33) and rounding out the varsity team was Collin Berglund (20:47).
Our JV boys also ran well and were led by Roman Schnobrich (21:18) who was going to see if he could keep Will Seaton in his sights for a little longer. He was followed by Owen Cruikshank (21:260, Drew Christensen (22:05), Rusty Day (22:13), and August Carpenter (23:10). Together they finished 7th place out of 10 teams.
Our junior high racers ran a 3-kilometer race and were fired up. Jake Paron finished 39th out of 129 racers with a time of 12:31. Following him was Finn Garry (13:55) and Andy Kern (15:52). The junior high girls also experienced much improvement in their races. Julia Larsen ran 20:08, which wasa2½minuteimprovement on this course from last year! Daphne Lacina was in front of her running 18:45.
On Saturday, October 6, we will be in Duluth at the Swain Invitational. This is another fun cross country all-day event. For this we will be switching up some of the racers into different categories—stay tuned!
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