“This has always been a good measuring stick of where we are at and what needs to be done to get to where we want to be,” said Head Coach John Van Kempen. 

The girls’ varsity had only two WCA runners in Teagan Nelson and Kennedy Porter.  Teagan ran with the front of the pack for much of the race but ultimately lost to five Rocori girls and she finished in sixth.  Rocori finished with a perfect score in a cross country meet with only 15 points meaning they had places 1st through 5th.   “Kennedy was gone at the state fair so we just kind of treated this as a practice and she finished in 54th place,” noted Van Kempen.

Four varsity runners from last year ran the eighth grade girls race with Terina Blacyk finishing in 3rd, Taylor Bennet in 4th, Alexa Blume in 6th and Brooklyn Runge in 11th.  Lexi Bright is somewhat hampered by a foot injury so ran the shorter distance junior varsity race and finished in first followed by teammate Quin Huntley in 23rd. 

The boys’ varsity had WCA senior Jacob Bright in first, followed by teammate Jack Van Kempen in 2nd, Kade Runge in 6th, Kyle Schill in 7th, Reubens Swanson in 21st, Alex Salwasser in 23rd and Shad Swanson in 27th.  “The boys finished 2nd to a very solid LQPV team by 4 points, similar to last year’s results,” stated Coach Van Kempen.  “Jacob led much of the race while Jack had to pass several runners to finish in 2nd.  Our 2, 3 and 4 ran together much of the race but in between our guys were LQPV runners.  It was a good test for us and our guys competed well.” 

The 7th grade race had Ben Bye in 6th, Simon Moritz (17th), Trent Lindquist (22nd) and Connor Friedl (30th).

The 7th grade girls had Blair Reuter in 7th and Steph Reeves in 21st.  The eighth grade boys had Dane Anderson in 2nd, Bryce Kjesbo in 3rd, Jack Coureir in 4th and Camden Anderson in 17th, and the JV boys had Peyton Hanson in 8th, Roman Mihailovschi in 9th and Eli Bergman in 14th.  “It was many of these younger kids first experience in race conditions and they competed very well but we feel they will be finishing better with more experience,” concluded Van Kempen.