Nelson, Koller win CC races at Loon Lake – Daily Globe
Nelson, Koller win CC races at Loon Lake Daily Globe
LOON LAKE — On a warmer-than-usual mid-September afternoon, high school cross country runners from 11 teams converged on the sloping hills of the Loon …
They were competitors in the four races of Jackson County Central’s annual meet, sponsored jointly this year by Tri-for-Health and KKOJ Radio.
A pair of premier area distance runners — Tenley Nelson from Luverne and Adam Koller of Worthington — were impressive in pulling away from the huge field of varsity participants as they claimed individual gold medals.
Nelson, a sophomore, is the fourth-ranked Class A girl in Minnesota and has been a two-time individual medalist at the state meet (fifth in 2017 as an eighth-grader and seventh last year as a freshman). She ran away from the rest of the 63 finishers and completed the 5,000-meter distance in a time of 19:52.9 — more than 83 seconds before Windom Area junior Gracie Bucher sprinted into the chute with a second-place time of 21:16.0.
Nelson paced an impressive team victory for the Cardinals, who are the state’s seventh-ranked Class A team. Both Bucher and Adrian ace Moriah Bullerman (fifth, 21:44.6) were running with incomplete teams and did not figure in scoring.
Luverne’s five scoring runners (team places 1-2-6-7-8) combined for a dominating victory with a mere 24 points. Regan Feit was third overall (second in the scoring) with a time of 21:25.90, and — after Martin County West’s Marissa Whitehead (fourth overall, third in the team scoring, 21:30.7), Bullerman, Katie Hartke of MCW (21:46.9) and Springfield’s Lilly McCone (21:47.7) crossed the finish line — the Cardinal trio of Elizabeth Wagner (eighth, sixth, 21:55.6), Jenna DeBates (ninth, seventh, 21:55.8) and Brooklynn VerSteeg (10th, eighth, 22:13.7) sealed the convincing win.
Koller was challenged more than Nelson was, but the Trojan senior — who ran a remarkable winning time of 34:43.9 in last Saturday’s Worthington King Turkey Day 10K — broke free of Springfield’s Mitchell Buerkle and MCW’s Jake Lewis for an 18-second victory, running a 5K time of 16:54.6.
Lewis, who was right with Koller at about the 3,000-meter mark, finished second (17:12.1), while Buerkle — the race’s early leader — ran a third-place time of 17:15.9.
Like Luverne’s girls, Worthington’s boys had all five scoring among the Top 10. Clinching the victory for the Trojans were Christian Lietz (fifth, 17:39.8), Mikele Walu (sixth, 17:39.9), Jordan Meledez (seventh, 18:20.2) and Ofbeka Morke (10th, 18:44.5), producing a winning score of 29 (1-5-6-7-10).
“Nice balance up front, led by Adam,” declared Trojan head coach Cory Smidt. “What really helped was how well Ofbeka ran today — that was his best race of the season.”
JCC, led by the 13th-place of Simon Pell (19:00.0), was second in the boys’ team standings with 98 points (13-16-22-23-24), while Mountain Lake Area/Comfrey was third (104), followed by Luverne (109), Windom Area (111), MCW (123), Heron Lake-Okabena (177), Springfield (187) and Blue Earth Area (233). Madelia/Truman and Adrian were each incomplete.
Luverne’s Brayden Tofteland ran a fine race up front, placing fourth among the huge field of 133 finishers with a time of 17:30.8.
Other area boys finishing in the Top 20 included Windom’s Patrick Green (eighth, 18:24.0), MLA/C runners Kaleb Eickhoff (ninth, 18:40.3) and Kody Wassman (11th, 18:49.5), Windom’s Cameron Alm (12th, 18:55.5), HL-O’s Tim Salentiny (14th, 19:01.7), Caden Swoboda of MLA/C (15, 19:03.2), JCC’s Clayton Cavness (16, 19:03.3), Jonah Friedrichsen of Luverne (17, 19:12.9), Paul Salentiny of HL-O (18, 19:17.9), Luverne’s Camden Janiszeski (19, 19:33.4) and Worthington’s Alec Langrud (20, 19:35.3).
MCW, led by Whitehead and Hartke, finished a distant second in the girls’ team standings with 71 points (3-4-20-21-23), while Springfield (78), Worthington (81) and MLA/C (103) also came up with complete scores. Windom, Adrian, JCC, M/T, BEA and HL-O were all incomplete.
JCC’s Olivia Anderson (11th, 22:40.0), Worthington runners Sena Uli (12th overall, ninth team scoring, 23:12.1) and Madison Schaeffer (13, 10, 23:24.8), Luverne’s Tiana Lais (14, 11, 23:28.3), Worthington’s Maranda Thier (17, 14, 23:38.8), Kayla Bloemendaal of Luvene (18, 15, 23:50.4) and Windom’s Jadyn Wormstadt (19th, 23:54.2) were other area varsity girls finishing among the Top 20.
Jenna Hoffman (26, 22, 24:46.6) and Marisa Thier (33, 26, 26:06.1) completed Worthington’s scoring, while Nedoh Gyi (40, 31, 27:14.2) and Nicole Wede (43, 32, 27:52.3) were the sixth and seventh Trojan finishers.
Windom’s Arianna Boldt raced to a clear victory in the junior high girls’ race and JCC’s Ben Spaeth needed a blazing finishing kick to pull away from Windom’s Thomas Green and MLA/C’s Zach Klassen in a closely-contested boys’ race over the same 2,400-meter course.
Boldt ran the 1.5-mile distance in 10:34.7 and teammate Emma Holtz (10:42.5) gave the Eagles a 1-2 finish by holding off JCC’s Rylie Cother (10:44.4). Makena Nelson (11:01.8) and Maria Rops (11:06.3), both of Luverne, finished fourth and fifth, respectively, followed by MLA/C runners Lydia Rete (11:11.7) and Annika Brinkman (11:12.2), who led the Wolverines to a team victory with 22 points. Hunter Penning of Adrian (11:14.4), Kendie Thiner of Worthington (11:28.8) and MLA’s Jacey Klassen (11:33.3) also were among the first 10 finishers.
Spaeth clocked a winning time of 8:54.1, followed closely by Green (8:56.3) and Klassen (8:58.6) before JCC’s Quinn Landherr (9:06.1), Windom’s Aaden Nauman (9:11.5) and Worthington’s Ethan Mahlberg (9:13.4) finished fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively. Ethan Schroeder of MLA/C (eighth, 9:20.6) and Caden Thurmer of JCC (10th, 9:40.0) completed the list of area runners in the Top 10. JCC won the junior high boys’ team title with a low score of 32.