Minnesota Ranks 12th Nationally in Girl's Cross Country!

Shout out to Minnesota's female cross country runners - way to represent our state well in the national arena!

MileSplit released a ranking of the top teams across all 50 states and Washington DC this week - using a team scoring method for the top five returning runners in each state. MN scored 704 points top finish 12th out of 51 teams. The Midwest was well-represented with Michigan ranked 6th with 455 points, Illinois ranked 8th with 574 points and Indiana ranked 9th with 592 points.

Bethany Hasz (Alexandria Jefferson) was MN's top scorer with her 1st place 17:06.00 finish at Nike Cross Nationals Heartland in November (11 points). Twin sister, Megan Hasz (Alexandria Jefferson) was just a few spots behind with her 3rd place finish in 17:17.90, also at Nike Cross Nationals Heartland (18 points). Emma Benner (Forest Lake) scored 82 points with her 17:52.78 first place finish at the USATF National Junior Olympics XC in December. 9th grader, Emily Covert (Minneapolis Washburn) is MN's 4th runner with an 18:04.80 at Nike Cross Nationals Heartland (131 points). Michaela Keller-Miller (Wayzata) rounds out the top 5 with her 18:07.80 finish at Nike Cross Nationals Heartland (146 points).

Jasmyn Armstrong (Red Wing) holds down the 6th spot. The rankings show Kaylen Bach in MN's 7th spot with a 5k performance at the Milaca Mega Meet but I believe it should actually be Annika Lerdall (Wayzata) with her performance at Nike Cross Nationals Heartland.

With this season being Minnesota's first at the 5k distance, and more athletes ultimately posting 5k times it stands to reason that we will rise in the rankings by the end of the season. There are very few 5k performances in the 2014 Minnesota database, most from Nike Cross Nationals Heartland, Nike Cross Nationals, Roy Griak and the Columbus Catholic Invitational.

To see the team scoring from across the country, click HERE!

To see which athletes scored, click HERE!