We headed down to the Proctor Invitational for our traditional end of the regular season meet. We joined a dozen other Section 7A teams on a cold, windy day—typical Proctor weather. This meet serves as the season finale for our JV and junior high runners, a final tune-up for our varsity runners, and some years, an intra-team competition for the... READ MORE >
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... READ MORE >
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,... READ MORE >
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... READ MORE >
Right after school on Friday, September 23, our caravan of two school vans and seven parent vehicles headed to Hinckley for an overnight before the huge, 150-team, 4,500 runner Milaca MegaMeet. Milaca runs all day Saturday, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with 19 races. To keep costs down and fun high, we stop for a dinner in Two Harbors... READ MORE >
We were a little nervous on the ride over to Eveleth for the big Golden Bear cross-country meet. With the big turnover from last year’s successful boys’ and girls’ varsity teams, over half of this years’ varsity runners had to step up from the junior high ranks. It’s a great opportunity for the young runners to develop quickly, but running... READ MORE >
Walking around the Pincushion Mountain Trails course Thursday morning, setting the course for our home cross-country meet, I was doing an “I hope it doesn’t rain” dance. I wish I hadn’t been so successful, as the clouds vanished and the temperatures quickly climbed into the 80s, not a good temperature for a long, tough race. It was especially tough on... READ MORE >
Three Cook County High School track athletes headed down to the Minnesota Class A track meet at Hamline University last weekend. The preliminaries for most events were held Friday, June 10 and finals were Saturday, June 11. Track is one of the toughest sports to get to state in. There are about 30 teams in each of the eight sections... READ MORE >
Heading down to the Section 7A finals Friday, June 3, we were pretty confident that three-time state meet participants Ailee Larson and Kieran Scannell would make it through to state. Beyond that we were just happy to have eight athletes at the Section finals. Track is a very hard sport to qualify for the state meet. There are 30 teams... READ MORE >
Last year, only our top three athletes qualified for the section finals out of subsection. This year we had higher expectations. Ailee Larson, Kieran Scannell and Peter Warren were sure bets to repeat last year’s success, so was first year girls’ sprinter Molly Zafft. In addition, either our girls’ 4×400 or 4×200 relay had a chance of qualifying with a... READ MORE >
