MANKATO — With the Tomahawk and Valley Conferences merging this season, there were a lot of changes during the Tomahawk-Valley Conference Cross Country Championship meet on Tuesday at Mankato Loyola High School.

One of those changes was a new champion, as Katie Thram and the Springfield/Cedar Mountain cross-country team were able to secure a first-place finish.

Thram finished in fifth with a time of 20:18 for Springfield, while Marissa Pabst finished seventh (20:52). Emmie McCone finished 11th (21:23), and Lydia Dauer finished 12th (21:30). Silvia Hovland rounded out the team with a 16th-place finish (21:53).

Springfield/Cedar Mountain came away with the win by a single point, edging out second-place Mankato Loyola/Cleveland/St. Clair for the top spot.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey Madelia’s Josiah DeMaris runs hard to the finish during the Tomahawk-Valley Conference Cross-Country Championship meet Tuesday at Mankato Loyola High School.

“I think it went well,” Thram said. “I think I finally ran with confidence for the first time this year. My teammates really helped me. Me and my second runner on the team, we run together and we help each other for the whole race. It a little bit cold out, but it’s perfect running weather. Better than 90-degree weather for sure.”

Thram and the rest of the Springfield/Cedar Mountain cross-country team has had plenty of success this season, despite some difficulties.

“It’s been going very well,” Thram said. “We have had some ups and downs, we have had some runners hurt, but we’ve all come back and we were all strong running today which helped us all win.”

Now they turn their attention to the section meet Thursday at Norwood Young America.

“State, we have a chance to make it, which is very awesome,” Thram said. “We’re all going to try our best knowing that we can give it all and make it to state.

Charlotte Meyer of Loyola/Cleveland/St. Clair won the girls race with a time of 17:49.51 and helped her team take second, finishing ahead of Lester Prairie’s Addison Hoof (19:05.15). Lester Prairie took fifth, while Martin County West/Butterfield-Odin took sixth.

Also at the meet, Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop finished in third place, led by Madyson Steele, who finished sixth (20:34). Lucy Dvorak finished 15th (21:41) and Kelly Willegal finished 18th (22:04). Abigail Willegal finished 19th (22:04) and Kelby Bruns finished 22nd (22:43).

Wabasso finished fourth in the meet led by Elsie Leopold, who took third (19:24). Abi Zeug (23:02) finished 24th, and Isabel Plaetz (23:39.5) took 27th.

Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s/Sleepy Eye/New Ulm Cathedral had two girls compete in the race, led by Emma Hagen (10th, 21.09.56). Millie Lax was the other runner for SM/SE/NUC, finishing 20th with a time of 22:17.49.

Loyola wins boys title, Madelia’s DeMaris takes 2nd

MANKATO — Josiah DeMaris and the Madelia Blackhawks both finished second in the first conference meet of the merged Tomahawk and Valley Conferences Tuesday at Mankato Loyola High School.

“It was definitely a competitive field today,” DeMaris said. “My goal was to stay with the guy who ended up getting first place, Sorren Kelly from Mankato Loyola. I was able to stick with him for about a mile, then he took off about 100 meters ahead of me. I was able to stay within about that range for the whole race. Overall, I thought I did pretty good, finished with a 16:35. I was pretty happy with that.

“I’m more happy with our team, placing second. We had high aspirations for ourselves. Four guys under 18 minutes and 10 guys under 20 minutes. It was a nice day out, I know the course conditions really well, which really helps. Overall just a fun day and great to run.”

Also for Madelia, Kaydon Firchau finished 10th (17:27), Caleb DeCann finished 13th (17:48), Tyrone Stout (17:49) finished 14th and Carson Meraz (18:11) finished 17th.

DeMaris said he and the rest of his team also have a good chance of doing well at the section meet Thursday at Norwood Young America.

“For our team, we are looking to get top two in the section meet next Thursday,” he said. “We’ve been looking forward to it all year and we know we can do it. It’s going to be a little bit of a battle, we’re going to need some good times and have some PRs even maybe. For myself, my goal is to place in the top six. A high goal is to place first. My PR is 16:16, I’d like to try to beat that too.”

Mankato Loyola/Cleveland/St. Clair ended up winning the boys meet with 26 points ahead of Madelia (56).

Also at the meet, Springfield/Cedar Mountain’s Matthew Groebner took sixth (17:13) to help secure a third-place finish for his team, along with Dylan Dewitt taking 15th (18:00), Luka Fernandez taking 16th (18:09), Bryan Buerkle taking 19th (18:33) and Matt Fernandez taking 22nd (19:00). Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s/Sleepy Eye/New Ulm Cathedral took fourth, led by Noah Christensen, who placed third with a time of 16:44. Levi Hagen (17:30) placed 11th, and Max Fischer (18:50) placed 20th. Wabasso placed sixth, led by Andrew Morin (17:20), who placed eighth. Ty Bernardy (19:33) placed 26th.

Lester Prairie was fifth in the meet, while Martin County West/Butterfield-Odin took seventh.