Super sophomore Kieran Scannell finished 5th palce at the Swain Cross Country meet.
The bus headed out before the crack of dawn Saturday to the 60th annual Swain Invitational cross country meet at Duluth’s Enger Park. Our 35 runners would soon be competing with 2,000 runners from throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin, on one of the hilliest courses in the Midwest. If you have been driving around town the last few weeks, you might have seen the team getting ready by doing tough hill repeats at the Rec. Park sledding hill, the bike path along Hwy. 61 from the Rec. Park up to the Harbor Light and up the Gunflint from the water tower to Pincushion. (We are all glad to be done with those!) Swain offered us the chance to see the benefit of that work.
Our junior high boys were the first to hit the course, a challenging venue to watch a cross country meet. You can stay near the start/finish area or you can run hard from the start, bushwhack through the woods to catch the kids on the first big hill, double back to see the 2nd big hill, and dash to the big downhill, but miss the finish. We chose the latter, getting a good mile of running during each race. And of course, all but junior high runs 2 laps. Eighth grader Daniel Ahrendt dropped down from his usual varsity position to lead the junior high team, and shoot for a top 10 medal. Coming up the first hill, he had positioned himself just right, running about 15th. Nate Carlson was next, leading Pete Summers and Will Seaton in the first half of the field. Going up the final climb, Dan couldn’t quite pull the trigger to move up to top 10, however he finished strong, placing 23rd of 143 in 11:38, an improvement of over a minute from last year. Pete ran a fine 12:15, 45 seconds ahead of last year, Will ran 12:23 – a huge 4 minute improvement and Nate ran 12:26 an outstanding first effort. Roman Schnobrich led our second group, running 14:08, with Sean MacDonell – 14:13, Owen Cruikshank – 14:13+ and Fletcher Kasell 14:28, close behind. The boys’ team finished 7th out of over 30 teams represented.
Our next race was the girls’ sophomore race, where we changed from the race pattern we have used the rest of the season. We elected to run our five senior girls alone on varsity, and put all the other girls in the sophomore race. Thatgave us a big 11-girl team in this race, nine sophomores plus freshman Audrey Summers and 7th grader Matea Acero. Therace is especially tough, because the Class AA and A girls are combined into one event.
Shelby Ahrendt led our girls, finishing in 19:11, 40th place in the 125-girl field. Audrey was next with a fine 19:42, followed by Matea, our young star, in 20:30. Rose Ingebrigtsen led our next group of three in 20:56, Sara Schield close behind in 21:02, and Kara Ramey in 21:09. Mara MacDonell had a good race, running 21:51, right ahead of Sarissa Falk’s 22:10 and Maggie McMillan’s 22:45. Rachel Todd paced Bailey Morrison, as they ran 24:36 and 24:41 respectively on this tough course. The girls finished 9th of 20 teams.
For boys’ junior varsity, Joey Chmelik and Drew Christiansen joined our usual JV team, and led the Vikings up the first hill, well up into the top half of the 130+ runner field. They ran together the entire race with Joey slipping ahead to 20:31, 6 seconds ahead of Drew, whose usual big sprint had been neutralized by the Swain hills. Alex Ditmanson was next, running a very evenly paced 21:39 for a fine top half finish. Brother Daniel made a big push on the first lap, paying for it somewhat on the 2nd lap, running 23:12. Sebastian Schnobrich and Karl Ingebrigtsen started out together, but Karl found the pace a little too hard, slowed a little, but finished strong in 25:46. Seb ended up running 24:40, almost 3 minutes faster than last year. Theboys’ team ended up 8th of 25 in the team competition.
Finally, as the sun broke and the wind died right on cue, we were ready for the varsity competition. Seniors Ailee Larson and Anna Schield lead the Viking girls’ varsity. Ailee, an individual state meet qualifier in track and cross country, is one of the top runners in the region, rated #10 by the Duluth News-Tribune
among AA & A runners. Anna is right on the edge of earning one of the 10 individual qualifying positions in Section 7A. Cheyenne Sorlie is our 3rd senior, an amazing runner who has improved her times by 2-4 minutes a mile this season to be in the middle of the varsity field. Katrina Axtell and Amber Todd were our other varsity runners at Swain. Both of them have run track and cross-country for a number of years, and are great leaders on and off the course.
We knew Ailee was going to have lots of tough competition, with state-rated Blake and Esko. Her strategy was to finesse the hills as best she could, then move up with her strength and unbeatable finishing kick. Coming up the first big hill, she was well back in the field, working hard but within herself. By the second lap, she had moved up to the second chase pack, which included the 15th to 25th placed girls. Coming to the finish, she waited a little too long (the Swain hills again) before picking off a couple girls, earning a 12th
place medal in 16:39. Meanwhile Anna had run her usual steady pace, finishing in 18:00, 45 seconds faster than last year, and 10th among 7A girls. Cheyenne ran 20:23, a 7-minute improvement consistent with her entire season. Katrina and Amber worked hard and shared the pain of Swain, running 22:17 and 22:39.
Boys’ varsity was the last. We knew sophomore Kieran Scannell would be one of the stars at any meet this season, but the boys’ team was probably a year or two away from being a state contender. In the first half of this season, they have been the 4th best team of the 20 in 7A. With all the strong teams at Swain, it would be a good chance to see where we stood.
Kieran had a special challenge too, as four of the top 10 rated individuals in the state, plus long time nemesis Jackson Lindquist of Esko guaranteed a very tough race. By the top of first hill, the six big guns, including Kieran, had separated from the field. Going up the climb a second time, Kieran labored a little and Jackson got away with the leader. At the finish, Kieran did haul in one of the state rated boys from Plainville- Elgin, finishing 5th in a PR tying 16:52.
Meanwhile, Josh Ensign and David Bergstrom were having PR (personal record) runs of 18:17 and 18:32 respectively. Likewise, Ben Seaton and Darren Waha were just off of their PRs, set last week on the flat Milaca course. Ben finished in 19:41, and Darren in 20:09.
In the important team competition, the boys finished 12th overall, 2nd of the Section 7A teams, just ahead of Eveleth and Mesabi East. It’s going to be an interesting second half of the season. Next up for the Vikings is the Hibbing Invitational, where the Vikings will see how they run on the flattest course of the season, and try to win back team mascot Optimus Prime (the turtle) from the Hibbing villains who swiped him last year.
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