No, this isn’t the annual migration of long distance runners heading south, it’s part of the field of harriers competing at the Eveleth Municipal Golf Course. CCHS runners will compete at Milaca this weekend, the largest high school cross country meet in America, joining more than 150 cross country teams from throughout the Midwest.
On September 11, 2014 the Viking runners headed over to Eveleth Municipal Golf Course for the second meet of the season. The conditions were perfect for a running race, nice and cool. Our runners have been working hard and some of our youngsters proved to the team that this was going to be an exciting season.
Eveleth-Gilbert won the boys’ meet despite only having five boys on their team. How did they do it? Well, they had the first runner followed by four teammates who were packed closely together.
They were followed by Proctor, who has been a force in the past and continues to be. The team winning the girls’ race was Ely—their top four runners are packed pretty closely together so it will be fun to watch them develop through the season.
Our Cook County-Two Harbors Vikings placed 9th for the boys and 10th for the girls. Each race had 15 teams present.
The girls’ race was first and Matea Acero, an 11th grader from Cook County, is back in action and had a great race. She has been recovering from an injury and there is nothing better than seeing a racer come in with a huge smile on her face because she knows she raced as well as she was able to. She finished 20th overall.
Running strong, Roman Schnobrich and a runner from Marshall pushed the pace together in the cross country race held at Eveleth.
Matea was followed by 11th grader Abigale Seipke from Two Harbors in 26th place; these two ladies are going to form a nice beginning pack for our girls’ team. Morgan Weyrens- Welch in 60th place, Alyssa Martinson in 62nd, Ruby Walsberg in 77th, Melanie Stoddard in 94th followed them and rounding out our varsity team was Hazel Babcock in 113th place.
Our boys’ team has an even tighter dynamic duo at the front. Jake Paron and Kiviok Hight, both 9th graders from Two Harbors have demonstrated that they are going to be a force both in our conference and in our section. Kiviok was a bit under the weather so the duo had to split towards the end of the race but both had huge improvements over their time from last year and they are pretty excited for what is to come. Jake Paron finished 9th with a time of 18:08, Kiviok Hight finished 21st, and he was followed by junior Sean MacDonell in 45th.
Then things started to shake up with some of our youngsters on the team. Noah Smith, a 7th grader from Two Harbors, was our 4th runner for the day and finished 65th right in front of Finn Garry in 66th place. Brenden Seipke, 7th grader, and Sebastian Cannon, 10th grader, are both new additions on our team and rounded out the varsity team, on this day finishing ahead of some of our veteran runners.
This team has a lot of depth and with all of these new runners there are many wild cards. It will be interesting to watch the season unfold, as they get faster and stronger.
We had two of our junior high runners finish in the top 10 of the junior high race. Kate Walsberg, a 7th grader, from Two Harbors finished 4th and working with her and finishing 9th place was an 8th grader from Cook County, Sophie Eliasen.
Our next race will be Saturday, September 20 at the Milaca Mega meet. It will be fun to watch our kids. They will be racing against over 150 teams from schools across the Midwest.
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