Over A Dozen Meets Make Up Massive Day Of Racing

Saint Paul Humboldt Invitational

Location: Thompson Regional Park, West St. Paul

Weather: High 50s and cloudy

BOYS

Virtual Meet Projections: Saint Paul Washington Technology (28), Saint Paul Johnson High School (42.5)

Top Individuals: Suleyman Jafer (Saint Paul Washington Technology, 16:50), Gyru Thor (Saint Paul Harding, 18:32), Stiven Castiblanco (Saint Paul Washington Technology, 18:41), Henry Wieffering (Saint Paul Johnson, 18:44), Andrew Hoang (Saint Paul Washington Technology, 18:54)

The Skinny: Suleyman Jafer had a breakout race last year at the Nike Heartland Regional meet where he ran 16:50, his fastest time by 32 seconds. Although he has not quite matched that time this season, he has still been off to a good start. This is only his second year in cross country so it will not be surprising if he continues to cut time off of his personal best and place higher up in meets. He won this meet last year and looks to repeat his title again this year. His biggest competition will come from Gyru Thor, however, he has had a pretty slow start to his season so it looks like Jafer will be able to take the win. Jafer's team from Saint Paul Washington Technology is the team to beat ahead of Saint Paul Johnson. They graduated three of their top five runners from last year but have new runners that are filling those spots.

GIRLS

Virtual Meet Projections: Saint Paul Washington Technology (28), Saint Paul Humboldt High School (29)

Top Individuals: Janice Cole (Saint Paul Washington Technology, 22:44), Klara Karlson (Saint Paul Humboldt, 23:34), Lay Lay (Saint Paul Humboldt, 24:42), Karina Garcia (Saint Paul Johnson, 24:55)

The Skinny: Only two of the teams in this field have a team large enough to field a scoring top five runners. Those two are Saint Paul Washington Technology and Saint Paul Humboldt and on paper they are only separated by one point. Washington has the front runner of Janice Cole who has only raced once this season and that was in the 2-mile distance. In that race, she was beat by Lay Lay from Humboldt by almost a minute and a half. It looks like it will be down to those two as Cole has the faster 5000m personal best but Lay has had the stronger start to her season. It will be interesting to see how Cole fares in the longer distance after her 2 mile race earlier this season. Many of the runners from Humboldt have not competed this year, leaving them with only 2 or 3 competitors at each meet. If that is the case at today's meet, Washington will be the only team with at least five runners competing to complete a team score.