Running only her third competitive 5K, seventh grader Charlotte Meyer (above) finished in third place in the sectional meet on Thursday to help lead her team to a silver finish and a trip to the state meet.
Meanwhile, legging through the course in a hard rain that began just after the starting gun at NYA's Baylor park, the boys took third place to miss out on state for the first time since 2015.
“We ran very, very well today…on both sides, boys and girls,” said first-year head coach Landon Javens. “We couldn’t have asked for a better race today. Even given the weather, how hard we worked, both teams were very successful.”
Meyer’s teammate Valerie Quast finished first of the 111 competitors with a 19:03.67. Meyer had no one around her with 800 meters to go but was overtaken down the stretch and finished in 19:27.56. Still, her time was another 42 seconds less than her conference meet finish on October 16.
“I started getting tired and was running slower at the end.”
“Even though she showed a lot of talent, we started her at junior high just to build confidence and then moved her up to see what she could do,” Javens said. “She performed really well in her first 5K. You tell her to go fast, and she just goes. Her capacity for pain tolerance and endurance is incredible.”
“I like running against the bigger kids and trying to beat them,” said the seventh grader.
Eighth grader Lily Phillips was 17th with a 21:23.58 finish, sophomore Molly Koester was 32nd with a 22:22.06, and eighth grader Charlotte Kirschner was 33rd with a 22:23.68.
Pushing the front five along were seventh grader Izzy Endres, who came in 41st with a 22:41.90, and sophomore Taya Waagner, whose 23:02.44 was good for 51st place.
With 82 points, just four points better than the Crusader girls, Mountain Lake Area finished first as a team. GFW took third of the 17 teams with 125 points.
It is the first Crusader girls trip to state in the program's history.
The St. James runners lowered their times for the boys race to take second place among the 15 teams. Their top runner came in first overall with a 16:06:32, and their 70 points was 11 better than the Crusaders. With 60 points, Mountain Lake won the boys race.
When the Crusader boys found out they didn’t make state, they might have been thankful for the rain, but Javens said they shouldn’t hang their heads.
“The boys were disappointed, but they have nothing to be disappointed about in terms of effort. They went out there and gave it everything. I’m proud of them.”
With a 16:34.82 finish, Crusader sophomore Soren Kelly was fifth of the 110 runners and will compete at state as an individual. Junior Sam Vetter was next in line overall with a 16:54.41 and, in the top six who are not on a team, will also compete at state.
Nathan Strobel’s 17:22.41 was his PR and good for 16th overall. It was the last race of his high school career.
“I ran the best I could. Conditions were absolutely miserable. Through the woods it was all muddy, sloppy. I had no traction whatsoever.”
Rounding out the Crusader top five, junior Kyle Zimmerman came in 26th with a 18:05.35, and junior TJ Waldron was 29th overall (28th among team runners) with an 18:07.74.
Prodding the quintet, senior Andrew Buboltz was 37th overall (35th), and sophomore Mitchell Buboltz was 45th (43rd).
This year, the state cross country meet is on the University of Minnesota’s Les Bolstad golf course, just west of the state fairgrounds, instead of the dedicated course at St. Olaf in Northfield.
In Class A, the Crusader girls will run at 12:45. The boys race starts at noon.
The Crusader girls track team, from L-R, front row: Cora Koester, Valerie Quast, Izzy Endres, Charlotte Meyer and Jewel Factor. Back row: coach Casey Olson, Page Daley, Gisele McCabe, Hannah Coudron, Molly Koester, Taya Waagner, Lily Phillips, Charlotte Kirschner and coach Landon Javens.
Nathan Strobel near the start of the race.
TJ Waldron with about 900 meters left in the race.