Staff photo by Ari Selvey St. Mary’s/Sleepy Eye/New Ulm Cathedral’s Noah Christensen closes on the finish line during the Tomahawk Conference Cross-Country boys meet at Farmers Golf and Health Club in Sanborn.

SANBORN — St. Mary’s/Sleepy Eye/New Ulm Cathedral’s Noah Christensen repeated as Tomahawk Conference Boys Cross-Country Champion Monday at the Farmers Golf and Health Club in Sanborn with a time of 18:20.

“It was a nice course,” Christensen said. “Temperature was really good, one of the best days in a couple of months. Lot of good competitors out here, could have been anyone’s race. [Springfield/Comfrey’s Matthew Groebner] has beaten me a couple times this year, so it was nice to beat him finally.”

Groebner, who finished third with a time of 18:51, and Christensen compete together in the spring for the River Valley track team but are opponents for the fall season.

“It’s always a big competition between us,” Christensen said.

Christensen’s performance helped his team take first in the meet with 42 points, just beating out Springfield/Comfrey with 44 points. MVL placed third with 52 points, followed by Wabasso with 96 points.

Individually, Wabasso’s Andrew Morin finished second with at time of 18:33. After Groebner, Raul Rodriguez from SM/SE/NUC finished fourth (18:57), followed by Levi Hagen (SM/SE/NUC, 18:58), Bryan Buerkle (Springfield/Comfrey, 19:24) and Ben Potter (Springfield/Comfrey, 19:31) to finish top seven for the Tomahawk All-Conference Boys Cross-Country team. SM/SE/NUC’s fourth runner, Anton Pyan, finished 14th. Pyan was filling in for Kendrick Henry, who was out with an illness.

MVL was led by Jeremy Feistner, who finished eighth with a time of 19:46. MVL’s Owen Birkholz and Titus Kohls finished ninth and 10th, respectively, with times of 19:49 and 19:54.

The Section 2A meet will be at Norwood Young America on Thursday, Oct. 26.