At the start of each of the six races at the Gerry Smith Cross Country invitational, held on the Montgomery National Golf Course on Thursday, spectators could feel the ground shake as the hundreds of runners, glued together down the first fairway, thundered by.
In the varsity girls race, the last race of the day, Charlotte Meyer, leading from the get-go, was one of the 159 runners contributing to the rumble.
Five kilometers later, the roar had long dissipated, but Meyer was still in front. Her 19:02.1 finish was 8.3 seconds ahead of the second-place runner. Overall, the Crusader girls were third among the 21 teams.
“It's obviously impressive for Charlotte to win against girls from highly ranked AA and AAA schools such as Waconia, Westonka and St. Peter,” said head coach Casey Olson. “But I was also impressed by how strong and in control the rest of the pack behind her looked.”
All the varsity girls runners finished in the top half. Lila Quast was 18th overall with a 21:03.3 finish. Riley Quigley came in 28th (21:37.2), Kaitlyn Anderson was 33rd (21:49.5), and Geisel McCabe was 45th (22:16.4). Prodding the front five were Maddy Siewert in 67th place (23:16.9) and Brooks Waagner in 72nd place (23:22.8).
“The girls were aggressive at the start and got great positioning,” Olson said. “I think it was a confidence booster for them to see how much farther into the race they were able to run before it started getting really tough, and that's the goal of early season racing. Our next step is continuing to build strength later in the race, which will get easier each meet.”
Meanwhile, the Crusader boys finished a respectable ninth among 27 teams.
“The boys ran smart and moved up throughout the race,” Olson said. “They were more controlled through the first section, which allowed them to be stronger at the finish line.”
Leading the charge was Griffin Rutz with an 18:25—50 seconds off his season-opening time—finish for 34th place among the 190 competitors. He was followed by Rollie Matejcek in 38th place overall (18:31.8), Reece Nelson in 39th place (18:31.8 for a 58 second PR), Carson Fahrforth in 101st place (20:16.9) and Luke Kortuem, trimming 55 seconds off his season-opening time, finished in 120th place (20:44.3). Jackson Bilitz was 153rd with a 22:10.4 finish.
“We have a couple of good packs that can run well together, so we just need to keep them working together a little more and pushing each other,” Olson said. “It was definitely a confidence booster for the boys to see that we can beat some of the top section competition. We're excited about where we're at and knowing that we'll just continue to get stronger, especially with two more meets against top competition from big schools in the next 10 days.”
The meet opened with the boys junior high 2500-m race. Among the 137 runners, Jase Blaschko was 55th with a 11:06.2 finish while Reid Johnson was 80th with an 11:47.4. The winning time was 9:02.8.
In the JV boys 5K, Anthony McCabe finished in 27:09.4 for 206th place. There were 241 competing, and the winning time was 17:42.3. The Crusaders were 14th of 16 teams. Luke Phillips was 108th overall (23:04.0), Ethan Beenken was 123rd (24:34.8), Andrew Bales was 179th (25:39.5), and Bryce Monson was 231st (29:23.2).
Harper Rutz finished the JV girls 5K in 30:36.5 for 80th place. There were 122 entries, and the winning time was 21:24.0. The Crusaders finished sixth among 12 teams. With a 25:44 finish, Charlotte Kirschner was 24th overall, Reese Mueller was 35th (26:49.4), Lea Taylor was 51st (27:59.6), and Ella Holub was 110th (35:06). Aubryn Siebert was 115th (38:21.4).
For all teams, the meet had Class A competition with good AA and a couple AAA teams mixed in, and overall, the theme for the Crusaders was to compete with them, Olson said.
“I really like this meet in the early season because it's a tough course with lots of runners. It gave us a chance to cut our teeth a little bit and see where we stack up right now. We'll have more opportunities over the next couple weeks to see great competition across all three classes, so we want to take advantage of that environment and build confidence in where we are right now.”
And overall, he was pleased with the results.
“With no meets last week, we put in several hard efforts, and the athletes weren't necessarily at 100 percent heading into this meet. We know that this is just the first of many building blocks throughout the season and that putting in the work now will set us up to be running as well as we can at the end of the season. With several strong schools from Class AA and AAA there, our focus was just on competing hard and building confidence from our performances. I think everyone did a good job of giving their best effort and we found a lot of success as a team with that.”
Last year at the Gerry Smith, the meet was rained out before Meyer had a chance to compete. Two years ago, her 18:54.5 finish was good for second place.
The Crusaders return to action today (Tuesday) when they head up to Norwood-Young America’s Baylor Park.
Above: Charlotte Meyer took the lead early. (photo courtesy of Bree Meyer)