Area runners ready for state cross-country
File photo by Travis Rosenau Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Titus Kohls runs during a cross-country meet at Allison Park in Sleepy Eye on Oct. 8. Kohls will make his state cross-country debut this Saturday in Ham Lake.
File photo by Ari Selvey Wabasso’s Elsie Leopold runs during the Tomahawk-Valley Conference Cross-Country Meet on Oct. 22 in Madelia.
File photo by Travis Rosenau Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Titus Kohls runs during a cross-country meet at Allison Park in Sleepy Eye on Oct. 8. Kohls will make his state cross-country debut this Saturday in Ham Lake.
File photo by Ari Selvey Wabasso’s Elsie Leopold runs during the Tomahawk-Valley Conference Cross-Country Meet on Oct. 22 in Madelia.
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HAM LAKE - Some of the area's top prep cross-country runners are currently readying themselves for this year's State Cross-Country Championships, which take place this Saturday at Majestic Oaks Golf Club.
The state meet will see Class A, AA and AAA all run, with the Class AAA girls beginning at 10 a.m., followed by the Class AAA boys at 10:45 a.m. At 12:15 p.m., the Class A girls will run, while the Class A boys run at 1 p.m. The Class AA girls run at 2:30 p.m., and the Class AA boys finish the state meet with a race scheduled for 3:15 p.m.
All runners from the area will compete in the Class A part of the meet.
The Sibley East Wolverines qualified their entire boys team for the Class A boys race after winning the Section 2A boys race at Norwood Young America last Thursday. Also advancing to the Class A state boys race from that Section 2A meet was Minnesota Valley Lutheran senior Titus Kohls and Madelia senior Caleb DeCann.
Qualifying for the Class A state girls meet from Section 3A was Wabasso sophomore Elsie Leopold, who won her second consecutive section title last Thursday to punch her state return ticket.
From that state-advancing Sibley East boys team, senior Gage Horstman has been the team's top runner throughout the season and his individual section title-winning performance last Thursday, where he finished first with a personal-best time of 15:30.3, helped lift the Wolverines to the team section title also. He was aided by senior Julio Alejandro, who took third (16:32.9) at the meet, while junior Aiden Christeson finished sixth (16:47.7). Senior Jacksen Pomplun placed eighth (16:49.5) at the section meet, while sophomore Jesse Ballalatak (17:09.2) and junior Ellyott Allen (17:12.7) took 15th and 16th, respectively. Senior Tanner Johnson, freshman Murdock Krueger and sophomore Preston Schwing will also run for the Sibley East boys team on Saturday.
Alejandro's PR time is 16:24.7, while Christeson and Pomplun's PRs came at this year's section meet.
Kohls finished fourth at the section meet last Thursday with a PR time of 16:40.1. After a cross-country race at Allison Park in Sleepy Eye on Oct. 8, Kohls said he was looking to reach a time of 16:30, and now he'll have one more shot to do that on Saturday.
For Leopold, who qualified for state this year with a first-place time of 19:53.6 in Luverne last Thursday at the Section 3A Girls Cross-Country Meet, she will be looking to improve on last year's state finish where she took 27th with a time of 19:36.6. Her PR is 19.05.8, which would have been enough to have given her a 12th-place finish in last year's state race.