Pushing hard for the finish line at the Swain cross country meet held in Duluth at Enger Park golf course was North Shore Storm runner Jake Paron. Paron finished in second place. He was the only Storm runner entered in varsity races at the highly competitive Swain cross country meet.
Northern Minnesota track and field fans wondered what became of Jake Paron last spring when he didn’t appear in any area high school track meets. Did he quit the sport?
No, it seems the talented sophomore distance runner from Two Harbors suffered an injury early in the spring when he pulled both his IT bands, the long ligaments that run from the hip to the shin. It was an injury that knocked him out of spring track and through rest and then therapy—which he still undergoes—he was only able to resume running mid-July.
And while he is still far from full strength, Paron is making a nice comeback in cross country for the North Shore Storm, a team of boys and girls from Cook County High School and Two Harbors. Evidence of that was Paron’s fifth-place finish in the boys’ Class A division of the 66th annual running of the Swain Cross Country Meet held on the hilly Enger Park golf course. Paron ran a time of 16 minutes and 47.5 seconds on the rugged Swain course, just two seconds slower than he ran last year.
Above: Feeling good, Anna Hay sprinted for the finish line at Swain. Left: Cecelia Chmelik shows the effort of running a fast pace over the hills at Swain.
The rest of the Storm runners competed in junior varsity or JV events, and the results were tremendous.
The North Shore Storm’s junior high (7th-9th) grade girls’ team scored 72 points to win the Class A junior high race against 17 teams. Leading the team was Louise Ramberg who placed 4th in a very talented field. Autumn Smith followed her in 9th, Cedar Gordon in 17th, Ariana Poyirier in 18th, Isabel Schottenbauer in 24th, Kate Walsberg in 29th, Robin Henrikson in 59th, Cecelia Chmelik in 64th, Hazel Oberholtzer in 74th, and Sidni Hendren placed 91st.
The boys’ junior high team placed fourth overall out of 28 teams, with ninth-grader Noah Smith (usually the second runner on the varsity) destroying the field with his 3,000-meter time of 10:01. Smith finished 18 seconds ahead of second place. Smith was followed by teammates Brenden Seipke in 7th, Kevin Viren in 49rd, JC Holman in 64th, Tate Crawford in 86th, Eli Schlangen in 127th, Trent Spry in 151st, Jonah Schmidt 154th, Justin Paron in 244th, and Jack Willis who finished 265th.
Maya McHugh led the girls’ junior varsity with a 7th place finish out of a field of 363 runners. Molly Thomas was hot on Maya’s heels with a 10th place finish. Marin Hay placed 22nd, Brooklyn Smith 36th, Page Gries 44th, Amelia Roth 52nd, Hazel Babcock 57th, and Daphne Lacina placed 59th,
North Shore boys’ junior varsity placed 5th out of a field of 17 teams, with sophomore CCHS runner Leif Anderson finishing 20th out of a field of 191 runners. Mikael Overby placed 22nd, Sam Libby 34th, Jron Tamanaha 46th, Jack Viren 49th, Andy Kern 58th, and Christian Beamer 70th.
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