Left: Viking 8th grader Matea Acero ran a great race to finish 5th in the girl’s junior high race at the Swain Invitational in Duluth last Saturday. Above: Everett Hommes ran a steady race at the Swain meet, finishing 2.5 miles in 18:44.
Twenty-six mostly young, many new, cross country runners headed out early Saturday morning, October 1 to the Swain Invitational Cross Country race in Duluth’s Enger Park. Renowned for its hills, this year’s motto is “What Goes Up….Must Go Up Again.” The 61-year-old event draws 80 teams from throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota. The Swain has junior high, sophomore, junior varsity and varsity races. Like a lot of teams, we decided to move some of the kids around to different events than they have been running earlier this year. We put our talented, developing eighth-grade boys into the varsity race, ran all our young girls in the seventh – eighthgrade junior high race, and ran our ninth and 10th grade boys in the sophomore race.
On another beautiful fall day, our junior high girls took the line first. Eighth-grader Matea Acero, who finished as our No. 5 varsity runner last year and has run varsity this season asked what we thought her chances of medalling in the race were. I honestly told her a top 20 finish would be great.
We’ve only had four runners place in the top 10 in this extremely tough field. Reed Lehto won as an eighth grader, as did Kieran Scannell, Noah Prinsen was 4th as an eighth grader and Heidi Sande was 4th as a seventh grader. At least, the top 30 girls in this race regularly run varsity.
Matea didn’t listen very well. We jogged out near the middle of the course to a favorite viewing point. Matea was out hard in 5th place, smiling all the way. She easily hung on to the No. 5 position, running an excellent 12:28 for the 3 kilometer (1.9 mile).
Meanwhile, teammate Abby Seipke ran well, a little over a minute back, finishing 46th in 13:42. Ruby Walsberg led our main group of Morgan Weyrens-Welch, Lily Gruber- Schulz and Molly Thomas, who all finished between 14:43 and 15:04, near the middle of the field. Julia Larson completed the team, running 21:41. Overall the young girls finished 8th in the team standings.
Our No. 2 varsity runner Joey Chmelik led our sophomore boys’ team, also hoping to earn a top 15 place in the 200- runner field. Halfway through the race, Joey had moved up to the coveted 15th spot. He faded a little in the last half of the race, but still ran an excellent time of 15:29 for the 2.5 mile race, finishing 25th.
Near the middle of the field, Drew Christensen and Nate Carlson worked well together throughout the race. As always, Drew unleashed his sprint near the end of the race, gobbling up at least a dozen runners in the final 150 yards, and finishing 108th in 17:33. Nate finished well 20 seconds back. Everett Hommes ran his usual steady race, finishing in 18:44, as did Owen Cruikshank about a minute back. First-year runner Rusty Day showed the most grit and determination on the team, running 22:27 and beating a dozen runners to the finish line. The boys placed 4th, right ahead of rival Proctor and best among Class A teams (A and AA runners compete together in junior high and sophomore races at Swain).
Junior Ben Seaton led the varsity boys in the 43-team, 227 runner Class A varsity race. He started out in the main pack, and moved up slowly throughout the race, finishing the 5K (3.1 mile) race in 19:10, a 31-second improvement from last year. Will Seaton, Pete Summers and Sean MacDonell worked extremely well together and were among the top eighth-graders in this senior high-dominated field. They all recorded 5K personal bests of 21:04, 21:12 and 21:21 respectively. A short distance back, Alex Ditmanson ran 22:05 and our fourth eighth-grade boy, Roman Schnobrich, completed his first 5K varsity race in a respectable 23:26. The boys were 27th in the team scoring.
Our girls faced a field equally as tough as the boys, 35 teams of 188 runners. Audrey Summers continued to provide great leadership for the girls, running 18:34—an improvement of over a minute from last year, and placing 99th. Junior Sara Shield took 1:20 off last year’s time, running 19:45 in 139th. First-year runner Emma Olfson continued her fine running on this extremely hilly course, running 20:53, while Sarissa Falk and Mara MacDonell were right behind in 21:06 and 21:18 respectively, also big improvements from last year. The rebuilding of our outstanding girls’ team of the last three years is proceeding well, as the girls placed 25th overall and 7th among Section 7A teams.
Next up at press time for the Vikings was the Hibbing Invitational on Thursday, October 6 and the important Polar League Championships here in Cook County on Wednesday, October 12. Come on up to the Pincushion Trails for the 1:00 p.m. start. Although state-rated Esko boys and girls are prohibitive favorites, the Vikings will battle Carlton, Moose Lake- Barnum, McGregor, Cromwell- Floodwood and Wrenshall for 2nd place team honors. In addition, our best varsity runners will be serious contenders for top 10 places and all conference honors.
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