Jaguar Challenge Highlights Today's Nine Competitions

Weather: Low 50's, wet

BOYS

Virtual Meet Projections: Red Wing (15), New Prague (65), Tri-City United (96)

Top Individuals: Tom Nemanich (Red Wing, 15:38), Tucker Wallin (Red Wing, 16:00), Weston Wyatt (Red Wing, 16:13), Bryan Zucker (Red Wing, 16:15), Hugo Ruiz (Tri-City United, 16:37), Lane Schwarz (LeSueur-Henderson, 16:41)

The Skinny: Taking the past week off from racing after a torrid start to their season, Red Wing will be back at it and has potential to achieve their second perfect score of the season in New Prague, even in a field that is not devoid of talent outside of them. Hugo Ruiz and Lane Schwarz in particular have been both remarkably good and remarkably consistent, as both of them are coming off individual wins, but it is hard to argue with the types of performances seen by Red win this season, whether it is Tom Nemanich or Weston Wyatt or one of their other great seniors. Lakeville South is also attending the meet, but will be holding out their varsity runners to race at Griak.

GIRLS

Virtual Meet Projections: Red Wing (16), New Prague (49), LeSueur-Henderson (76)

Top Individuals: Grace Johnson (Red Wing, 18:52), Ariana Mollgaard (Red Wing, 19:18), Grace Dube (Red Wing, 19:18), Tori Leitner (Red Wing, 19:22), Victoria Flores (LeSueur-Henderson, 19:46)

The Skinny: Again, with Lakeville South holding out their varsity squad, there will be little challenge to Red Wing in winning this meet, and again, a perfect score is possible. Grace Johnson's season could hardly have gotten off to a better start, but she also did not race in Red Wing's last meet at Rochester Mayo, so it is unclear if she will race today either. Even still, Red Wing has a number of girls who all have a shot at winning the meet. The best chance to break up the Red Wing runners up front will be LSH's Victoria Flores, who had a strong start to the season picking up a win in her first race, but also ran twice last week. It will also be interesting to see if New Prague's team can make up some ground on Red Wing, as they have been having a solid season themselves so far, with five runners running under 21 minutes.

(written by Mark Rice)