Class AA Girls
This was the team battle that gathered the most attention on a national stage heading into the Saturday. In 2015, the teams representing Minnesota at NXN were that year's team champions in Edina and 3rd-place finisher Willmar. Neither team graduated anyone, and both have improved. This year, both are ranked in the top seven in the nation.
US#7 Edina was already poised for a great season by virtue of all the returning runners from 2015, but they received an added boon when last year's Class A runner-up from Breck, freshman Morgan Richter, moved into the Edina District. Her addition has been instrumental in Edina's domination of their competition in 2016.
Edina's strength at the top showed at State when they placed four runners in the top 17 and three in the top-10.Their discipline also showed; only Richter and Amanda Mosberg ran the first mile under 6 minutes (they both ran 5:48). Every other Edina runner was over 6 minutes and higher than 53rd overall. Edina was only sitting in 3rd place at the mile as a team, but the discipline paid off in the form of a 13-point victory over the only team they have failed to dominate over the course of the season, the US#6-ranked team from Willmar.
Willmar returned all seven of their runners from 2015 and also had three runners who were ranked in Minnesota's top-ten during the season. But like Edina, they also ran a very controlled and disciplined race. At the mile, no runner was higher than 55th overall, not even their top trio of seniors (Sophie Schmitz, Kayla Rude, and Jessa Hanson) who had all run under 18:30 this year. As a team, they were in 6th place, and no runner was under 6 minutes. But by the end of the race, they had placed four runners in the top 18 and scored 58 points overall. The 13-point difference between Edina's win and Willmar's runner up finish belie the fact that both teams ran very smart races that showed off just how remarkable their abilities as respective teams were.
It was the year of the eighth grader for Minnesota girls. After Teirney Wolfgram's dominating win in the Class A race, Farmington's Anna Fenske took to the course to dismantle the field in the AA race. Running with teammate Lauren Peterson for the first half of the race before eventually pulling away for a convincing win, Fenske put the dot on the exclamation point she started to draw with her 17:10 performance at Sections. And with her win, she became the first 8th-grader to win a Class AA race since Josie Johnson of Rochester John Marshall in 1996. Of course, no small assist is due to teammate and eventual runner up Lauren Peterson, who helped Fenske push to a 5:22 opening mile to open up a 13-second lead a third of the way through the race.
But it wasn't all youth to steal headlines in the race. Finishing third and fourth were Chanhassen's Anastasia Korzenowski and Shakopee's Tess Misgen. These two seniors have combined for twelve Cross Country State appearances, nine All-State honors, and four top-ten finishes in Cross Country alone, in addition to numerous other honors in track & field. It was a fitting finish to their historic cross country careers. And it was a fitting finish for the 2016 edition of the Minnesota State Cross Country Championships as well.