Varsity 2A
With the extreme heat on its way out, much of Minnesota is looking forward to racing fast this weekend, and Milaca looks like the place to do it. Although scattered thunderstorms are scheduled, cloudy skies and fast grass are the forecast for Saturday morning. As one of the biggest weekends in Minnesota racing-wise, Milaca will be sure not to disappoint with some very close races and tight team battles.
In the boys race, it seems to be a three-man competition up front. Geno Uhrbom, the Freshman from Greenway High School, will certainly be looking to take a big win, and he has the top PR of any athlete in the field. However, he has a stacked field behind him. Mounds Park Academy's Declan Dahlberg will look to continue winning after beating Joseph Minor of Washburn earlier this season and running away with the Private School Championships. His past of performing well in big meets and overall experience push him up to be the expected winner, in spite of his bout with Mono before the season began. Ethan Olson of Moose Lake/Willow River hasn't quite been having the type of season most envisioned for him as the returning fifth-place finisher at State last fall, as he has finished runner-up in all four of his races so far, including twice to Uhrbom. Keiser Freetly, on the other hand, has been on fire so far this fall, winning handily in each of his five races. The other Keisers in the field, Owen and Symon from Jordan High School, will also be in the mix, in particular the fifth-ranked Owen. Behind those athlete will be a trio from Perham with Carson Speicher, Clayton Anderson, and Brandon Ohara, and then finally East Grand Forks runner Cole Nowacki. The team race will really pick up from there as there seems to be plenty of runners looking to break that 17-minute barrier for the first time.
In the boys' team race, there is definitely going to be a great battle. Greenway-Nashwuak-Keewatin has great depth throughout with Geno leading the pack up front. Our virtual meet tool actually predicts them to be the winner with 100 points. However, this is where we must disagree with our own tool, as it is the Class A top-ranked Perham High School (whom our tool projects to score 115 points) who will be the team to beat. They proved that by beating Greenway at the Lucky Lindy Invitational last week by a very comfortable margin. Behind those two teams is an extremely stacked competition. In spite of receiving little attention thus far this season, East Grand Forks is the team sitting in third in Milesplit's virtual meet tool with 123 points, thanks in part to a 56-second spread. Moose Lake/Willow River, Jordan High School, and Mora are the next three teams to show up in the virtual meet and considering that Mora sits seventh in the Class A polls, that goes to show how strong the team competition really is.
On the girls side, the competition both individually and teamwise is not as deep as the boys. But there is still a great field here. Freshman seem to be the story of the night, as the top female athlete in the 2A division is fourth-ranked Class A athlete Marissa Whitehead, a harrier of Martin County West High School. Last year's Class A State runner-up, Whitehead has run 19:00 already this season, which is the fastest time this year by 44 seconds, so it appears the real race will start with 11th-ranked Caitlin Covington of Perham and Iliana Ramon of Fairmont High School. Proctor's Hannah Bettendorf will be in the same group with a season best of 19:49, and also finishing a race this year in under 20 minutes are Ramon's teammate Laura Thompson (an 8th-grader), Rockford 8th-grader Ava Cusciotta, and yet another 8th-grader with Fargo Shanley's Anna Bernhardt. As a race that typically goes out fast, anything could happen in the later stages of the race.
This time, the virtual meet shows a clear winner, and this time, we agree with it. Second-ranked Perham is projected to score 69 points to take the win in a very comfortable margin. Class A's top-ranked Fairmont is set only to score 177 points due to an overlarge spread of 2:41, although we're sure that reality will show that spread to be much smaller. However, sandwiched between those two teams is the inexplicably-unranked Proctor squad. Projected for 109 points, Proctor's greatest strength is their top four, who all have run 20:49 or better this year. Their fifth runner is a bit further back and is preventing them from being comperable a team of Perham's depth. East Grand Forks and ninth-ranked Lake City round out the next two positions, as again East Grand Forks is set to beat a ranked team.
(This portion was written by Wes Heal)