Location: Grand National Golf Club
Weather: Mostly cloudy and 55
BOYS
Virtual Meet Projections: Mora (31), Pine City (53)
Top Individuals: Cooper Lennox (Mora, 16:28), Tommy Ryan (Pine City, 16:56), Nathan Williams (Mora, 17:10), Craig Feist (East Central, 17:11), Cedric Lefave (Hinckley-Finlayson, 17:12)
The Skinny: Likely serving as a warm-up for the much bigger Swain Invitational this Saturday, Mora will have a pretty comfortable margin over Pine City for the win at the inaugural Hinkley Invite. The tenth-ranked Mustangs have been steadily improving as the year has gone on, and now have all five scoring runners at 18:02 or better this season. Section rival Pine City, on the other hand, has actually been having a very underrated season this year and could potentially be a surprise in Section 5A, much like how Heritage surprised a lot of people with their State qualification last year. the individual battle will basically come down to how close the runner-up can finish to Cooper Lennox, and who that runner-up will be - four schools all have an athlete that could potentially claim that spot.
GIRLS
Virtual Meet Projections: Mora (25), Cambridge-Isanti (51)
Top Individuals: Alaina Steele (Pine City, 19:46), Eva Holmgren (Mora, 20:08), Peyton Oslin (Mora, 20:50), Jordan Merwin (Cambridge-Isanti, 21:04), Tess Houglum (Mora, 21:07)
The Skinny: The Mora girls are now matching the rankings of their boys squad at number ten in Class A, and they appear to now finally have something that they've been lacking for a long time - a true low stick. Eva Holmgren has been Mora's top runner in their last three meets, and is coming off an effort in Foley where she came very close to breaking 20 minutes, running 42 second faster than Mora's number two runner Peyton Oslin. Mora's depth is great, and has been great for a while, but the inability to score single-digit points on a consistent basis has undermined how good their team could potentially be, so if Holmgrem can become that type of runner for the, it opens up new possibilities for where they could go. That advantage is felt a little bit less, of course, when they only race four other teams, however, and Mora is projected to score fewer than half the points of runner-up Cambridge-Isanti. Meanwhile, all State 800m runner Alaina Steele is a fairly strong favorite for the win, with only Holmbgrem having a time within a minute of her 19:46.
(written by Mark Rice)