Above left: Jasmine Swenson ran a fine race in the Junior High division at the recently held Polar League conference meet held at Pincushion. Above right: Coach April Wahlstrom encourages her runners. Ben Seaton, with Joey Chmelik hot on his heels, made all-conference with a 9th place finish, while Joey just missed all-conference honors by placing 11th in the varsity 5K race. Right: Roman Schnobrich finished 6th in the JV race.
Finally, we had a home meet with competition more our size. After Milaca and Swain—monster-sized meets with state meet quality competition; Hibbing with combined A & AA races; and Eveleth with 15 of the Section 7A competition— we returned to our home trails at Pincushion and took on the other six cross-country teams in the Polar League. Of course, state-rated Esko would be here in full force, always a tough obstacle for every CCHS sports team, but we felt we could hold our own against Carlton, Moose Lake/WR, Cromwell, McGregor and Wrenshall. At stake were all conference honors for the top 10 varsity boys and girls, plus medals for the top five junior varsity runners and top 10 junior high runners. And we wanted some of that hardware!
Although the weatherman talked of rain, wind and cold, we got one more beautiful day of sun and 60. Decent weather for running and great for spectators. With a lot on the line and lots of family and friends out cheering on the courses, Head Coach April Wahlstrom had the team fired-up and ready to go.
First up was the junior high race. With a lot of junior high talent, we have the luxury of running our most consistent junior high age runners in the varsity race, while still having a lot of talent in the junior high races. While I was warming up Nate Carlson and Pete Summers, they asked what to do. The answer was simple— go out hard. If Esko had anyone real strong in the race, stay with him. If not, leave the field and go for the win. And they did.
Pete set the pace, with Nate right with him. They opened up a big lead on the first of two laps, and looked very comfortable. They came into the finishing stretch together. After a good, competitive sprint, Nate edged Pete by 1/10th of a second in 9:56.1. In the process they took down Kieran Scannell’s sixyear old team course record by 2/10ths of a second.
Meanwhile, our group of four young girls was well positioned in the top half of the girls field. In a team sprint, Ruby Walsberg edged Morgan Weyrens-Welch and Lily Gruber-Schulz, as they placed 7th to 9th at around 12 minutes flat for 1.6 miles. Jasmine Swenson was 30 seconds back in 13th place. A win and five medals for the Vikings, all right!
Next, we had the combined girls’ varsity and JV race. Rated 4th in the state, the Esko girls, led by defending state champion Marissa Shady, are very talented. At the gun, they were gone with only many-time state meet competitor Lindsey Dahl-Holm able to go with Esko’s top six runners.
Audrey Summers and Matea Acero were right in the next group however, and Sarissa Falk, Sara Schield and Abby Seipke in the middle of the field. Marissa was on a mission, however, as she quickly left her teammates and soloed to the finish, running 14:29 and breaking the old course record by almost a minute. Audrey and Matea ran great races earning all conference honors by finishing 8th and 9th in 17:33 and 17:35 respectively, an improvement of about 2 minutes from the Viking Challenge on the same course six weeks earlier. Sarissa continued her breakthrough racing, finishing with a big personal best (PB) of 18:32 for 11th place. Sara and Abby ran very well together, finishing 14th and 15th in 19:18. Close behind, first year runner Emma Olfson ran 19:39, good for 4th in the JV race. Mara MacDonell got under 21 for the first time at the 2.5-mile distance in 6th, and Cailan Carpenter had her season best of 22:32 in 10th. The girls met our goal, finishing 2nd to Esko in the team competition.
Now the pressure was on the boys. Rated 7th in the state, Esko boys are almost as good as their girls, and all the other teams had at least one all conference quality runner. At the gun, Ben Seaton took off hard, followed closely by Joey Chmelik. In the middle of the field, younger brother Will Seaton led the rest of our varsity team with his great sense of pacing. Ben ran strong all the way, finishing 9th in 19:19, by far his best performance on our home course. Joey fell back a little from Ben, unfortunately allowing a McGregor runner to snatch the last coveted allconference medal. Joey is only a 10th grader however, so he’ll have a couple more chances.
Our only senior this year, Alex Ditmanson, edged out Will and Sean MacDonell, as they finished 15th, 16th and 17th, all around 22 minutes for the 3.1 mile distance, a big PB for all three.
In the JV race, Roman Schnobrich continued his remarkable improvement this season, finishing 6th in 23:18. Everett Hommes was our next runner in 24:20, followed by Owen Cruikshank in 25:29 and Rusty Day in 28:47. Like the girls, the boys ended up second to Esko in the team competition.
There were a lot of high 5’s at the award ceremony for our young, improving Viking running team, as we look forward to Proctor and Section 7A at Cloquet the next 2 weeks.
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