Above: The Viking boys’ cross country team shows its moxie by running in a pack at the recent conference meet held at Pincushion. Here, from left to right are Shawn MacDonell, Will Seaton and Alex Ditmanson.
The Viking cross country team headed over to the Hibbing Invitational meet Thursday, October 6, joining 14 other Section 7A teams. Our main goal is to continue our steady improvement in anticipation of the Polar League A Championships the last Thursday of the month. Of course we would like to recover our old mascot, Optimus Prime, from the Hibbing team, but we either have to beat them, or steal it back. They have it well hidden, and they have too much depth for us, so we’ll just have to concentrate on improvement. (Ask an older team member or alumni to explain Optimus Prime).
The Hibbing race isn’t a team favorite. The course is dead flat, with the biggest hill being an elevated tee box, and we are a strong hill running team. The weather has been uncooperative lately—very hot last year (and this year), snow the year before, and thunderstorms the two years before that. Plus, they mix A and AA, only sorting them for scoring, so it’s hard to figure out where you are at with your competitors. But enough whining, just get out and run.
We started right off with the varsity/junior varsity girls’ race. April and I decided to move a couple of the faster junior high racers up to the varsity race, as we attempt to identify our best team for Conference and Section. There is no question that our top runners are Audrey Summers and Matea Acero, as they moved up near to the front of the chase pack.
Young Abby Seipke, a talented junior high racer in her first varsity race, settled into the middle of the field with juniors Sarissa Falk and Sara Shield. A short distance back, Emma Olfson and Mara MacDonell worked together, while firstyear JV runner, junior Cailan Carpenter paced young Ruby Walsberg.
Audrey moved up steadily, with Matea hanging on gamely. They finished 26th and 27th at 18:29 and 18:32 in the 100- runner field. Compared to races earlier in the season, they are moving up through the ranks very nicely. Abby put a little gap on Sara and Sarissa. Good thing, not only was Sarissa having a breakthrough race, getting under 20 minutes for the first time at 2.5 miles (a PR of more than a minute), but she also has one of the best finishing sprints in the field. Abby was 47th in 19:38, Sarissa 50th in 19:46 and Sara 52nd in a steady 19:52. Emma and Mara were a little over a minute back in 21:03 and 21:24, very good, solid races for both of them. With Cailan giving her confidence and a steady pace, Ruby ran 21:24, while Cailan finished in 23:20. The girls finished 9th of 15 teams.
Emma Olfson (upper photo) and Abigale (Abby) Seipke and Sarah Shield (right) all have had great seasons running for the Vikings’ girls cross country team. Here the young harriers are competing in the conference cross-country meet held on Pincushion on Wednesday, October 12.
We ran all the boys, except sixth grader Andy Kern, in the varsity/JV race, also to see who were the contenders for our section team. And like the girls, there was no question who our top runners were, as Ben Seaton and Joey Chmelik placed themselves in the top third of the field and moved up steadily throughout the race. They finished 25th and 28th in the 150-runner field, with good times of 19:24 and 19:30 in the 5K (3.1 mile) race.
Our only senior on the team, Alex Ditmanson, had a very good race, managing to finish ahead of his hard charging, mostly junior high teammates, as he finished 65th in 21:55.
Sean MacDonell had his best race of the season, running 22:10, good for 70th. Right behind, Drew Christensen ran 22:14, Lars Scannell 22:18, Pete Summers 22:35, Will Seaton 22:36, Nate Carlson 22:39 and Roman Schnobrich 23:17. A short distance back, Everett Hommes ran 25:15 and Owen Cruikshank 25:54. First yearrunner Rusty Day showed his usual tenacity and pain tolerance, running 28:35. Like the girls, the boys placed 9th in the 15-team field.
In the junior high races, Lily Gruber-Schulz had our top place of 16th in 15:23 for 3K, 1.9 miles. Jasmine Swenson was right behind in 15:24, while Julia Larsen finished in 22:34. Young Andy did a great job with no teammates in the boys’ junior high race, running a very steady 17:03 for the 3K.
After swarming into Sammy’s Pizza in downtown Hibbing, we headed back generally satisfied with our team and individual results, and very much looking forward to running the Polar League meet at home on the Pincushion Trails’
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