St. Olaf Showcase:
Boys Results - Girls Results
In an early season opportunity to race on the Minnesota State Cross Country Championships course, both Jaycie Thompsen of Wayzata and Alex Miley of Maple Grove made the best of building their confidence towards November in scoring individual wins at Friday's St. Olaf Showcase.
Miley had a race all the way down to the wire with Hopkins senior Seth Eliason as they had broken away from the rest of the field by over 40 seconds and found themselves together charging to the finish line battling for first. Miley was able to have the better kick slightly on the day with a 16:00 victory over Eliason in second at 16:01.
Miley ran 4:19 for 1600 and 9:20 for 3200 this past spring and is looking to finish even higher than his 7th place run in last year's Class AA state cross country race. Miley also helped lead the Maple Grove boys to the team title as they finished with a score of 93 points to separate themselves from the runners-up at Centennial with 127 points.
Meanwhile, the Wayzata girls crushed the field as they appear to be a team looking to regain their national prominence from several years ago when they won the Nike Cross Nationals. Wayzata put 5 girls among the top 20 places led by race champion and senior Jaycie Thomsen, who posted a time of 19:05. Next closest finisher to Thompson was Perham senior Brynnan Covington in second at 19:27.
A much higher finish for Thomsen compared to her 54th place finish in last year's Class AA state cross country race on the same course as she is coming off an outdoor season which she broke 11 minutes for 3200 meters (10:54 PR) and also ran a personal best of 5:04 for 1600 meters. The Wayzata girls have two freshmen among their top 5 as well as two seniors to have a mix of experience and new talent to shape their 2016 squad.
Averaging 19:54 on the St. Olaf College 5K course to start the season, the Wayzata girls' score of 51 points put them at a winning margin over 100 points with Hopkins in the runner-up spot with 154 points.