2016 Minnesota State XC Meet Recap

Nov 09, 2016

Class A Boys

Talk about drama! Obviously the point can be argued, but the first race of the day may have been one of the most memorable State Meet races in recent history.

Coming into the day, Perham had been the top-ranked Class A team all season long. They had defeated the team from Mora twice during the season, but Mora was the reigning team champion for the last two years. Both teams dominated their section, but in the end it was the second-ranked Mora team that came away with a crown, and entered into the record books as the first boys team to complete a three-peat since Staples-Motley in 2003.

Seniors Michael Schwinghammer, John Schwighammer, and Alan Sanbeck have been members of all three teams, and all three ran career best times on Saturday. In addition, six of Mora's nine State athletes were seniors. A four-peat may be difficult for Mora to achieve with the graduation of these three athletes, but with a streak of having qualified for state every year since 2006, they have clearly built a strong running tradition and can never be counted out.

Perham will also be a team that will have a great exodus of seniors, but they have an even more impressive streak of having not only qualified for State every years since 2002, but have managed to finish in the top four every one of those years. This unprecedented success includes five state titles and now seven runner-up finishes. Remarkably, only three of those seven runner-up finishes were decided by more than 6 points.

Of all the thrills of the day, I doubt few would argue the biggest one was final moments before winner Declan Dahlberg crossed the finish line. The final results put the difference between first and third place as 0.4 seconds. The top seven finished within 7.1 seconds of each other. Never in the history of the Minnesota State Meet has the margin between first and third been so close, nor between first and seventh.

Dahlberg entered the day undefeated against Class A runners, and had beaten many of Class A's top runners over the year. Most of the season he was the top-ranked runner in Class A. But Class A has been blessed all season with a deep, talented pool of runners at the top, making the close finish fitting. Strong cases for victories could have been made for no fewer than five or six other runners in this race. Zach Emery was the defending champion. His teammate Matt Steiger consistently ran step-for-step with him. Carl Kozlowski ran Class A's top 5k time. Lucas Mueller, Ryley Nelson, and Ethan Olson all had impressive performances over the season. And at late as 200 meters left, any one of those runners still could have won.

But as exciting as this race was, there were still three more to come...