“Tonight was a night where the weather took control,” said Fergus Falls Head Coach Niki Welde.  “The race directors notified us on Wednesday afternoon that they were canceling the Middle school races.  The storms predicted for the evening were going to allow very little time for races, so they shortened the schedule up.  The first race was the boys JV.  The race was called off 4 minutes in due to lightning.  We took our teams to our buses until there was 30 minutes of no lightning.  An hour later the officials opened the course again, running all Boys at once followed by all Girls 2 minutes later.  The large field and large amounts of rain made the course soft, slippery and muddy.” 

Rocori eighth-grader Katelyn Motter was the champion with a time of 19:14.6 and another eighth-grader, Kyanna Burton of Staples-Motley took second with a time of 19:17.5.  Ava Larsen of Rocori was third (19:34.5), followed by Aleah Miller (19:35.2) and Caitlin Bright (19:35.2) of Alexandria.  Aspen Rohde of Perham placed sixth (19:35.8), Calia Chaney of Pequot Lakes was seventh (19:40.5), Paige Larsen of Rocori was eighth (19:41.8), Taylor Melton of Moorhead finished ninth (19:49.2) and Emma Ecker of Alexandria was tenth (19:53.5).

Emily Nuss led the Otters with a time of 20:44.6, finishing 33rd.  “Nearly all of the varsity team runners had season best times even in the challenging conditions,” said Welde. “Natalie Fransen (28:03.5) had the most dramatic time drop of over 2 minutes on her best race this season.  In addition all of the girls who ran the 5K last year improved their times on this wet course.  Karolyn Papon (22:18.2) ran a strong race, placing 68th.  Ellia Soydara (24:19.2) dropped 45 seconds off her time from last year on this course.  Rebecca Schindler (24:21.0) continues to get stronger and more confident in her abilities with each race.  Miah Schmidt (27:45.8) ran strong in her varsity debut tonight.   Seniors Makenna Stenstrom (23:12.2) and Emma Rund (30:38.9) both led our team throughout these unique conditions. They are both excellent captains.”

Rounding out the team scoring for Alexandria were Jaelyn Miller (19:57.0) in eleventh place and Giselle Jahner (20:00.3) was twelfth.  

Perham Coach Jeff Morris said, "The girls coming into the Lucky Lindy are ranked #3 in Class A competition and looking to continue to gain more race experience with each meet. The girls dealt the the same race challenge as the boys, but with the 2 minute stagger, our girls by half way were starting to catch up to some of the boys in the race ahead. This was a unique experience for our girls to be really in the same race as the boys.  The girls last week finished 4 points behind #2 Staples and repeated that same result again this week. Leading the girls was 8th grader Aspen Rhode who finished 6th overall in a time of 19:35. Our top 7 scoring was rounded out by Liz Birkeland (27th) in 20:33, Quincy Anderson (32nd) in 20:44, Mya Morris (38th) in 20:53, and Lauryn Rustad (41st) in 21:01, Abby Tweeton (46th) in 21:05 and first time varsity runner Kaia Starzl (53rd) in 21:42."

Full results can be found at https://www.gopherstateevents.com/results/cc_rslts/cc_rslts.asp?hide_team=n&hide_ind=n&sport=Cross-Country