Great Meets In Perham And Owatonna Highligh Another Big Day

2018 Minnesota XC Meet Previews
Milesplit MN Staff

PREVIEW

West Marshall Invitational

Location: Warren Riverside Golf Course, Warren

Weather: 43 degrees, will probably miss the rain

BOYS

Virtual Meet Projection: East Grand Forks (18), Thief River Falls (45)

Top Individuals: Cole Nowacki (EGF, 16:13), Tyson Mahar (EGF, 16:21), Sakariye Ismail (EGF, 16:36), Jonathan Krueger (EGF, 17:00), Hayden Reitmeier (Fisher, 17:29)

The Skinny: East Grand Forks ran a meet on Tuesday in Sauk Centre, and they will be running again on Saturday at Swain, so they likely will be taking it a bit easy in this small meet in Warren. That shouldn't stop the 11th-ranked Class A team from being massive favorites (unless, of course, they rest their top varsity runners), as they won the top four athletes in the field by a wide margin. They are still looking for the gap between their 4th and 5th runners to cut down, however, which would put them into the real conversation for a top-ten or top-five spot at State. Cole Nowacki has owened the top spot all season for EGF, and with his win over Noah Stewart last week, he may have lined himself up for a spot in the rankings next week individually. As usual, his teammate Tyson Mahar should be finishing close to him.

GIRLS

Virtual Meet Projection: East Grand Forks (27), Warroad (62), Thief River Falls (73)

Top Individuals: Katherine Geist (Crookston, 18:45), Lydia Floden (EGF, 20:08), Jerzie Finstad (TGF, 20:09), McKenna Langerud (EGF, 20:23), Marin Garrett (EGF, 20:47), Rebecca Heppner (Warroad, 20:52)

The Skinny: EGF is almost as big a favorite on the girls side as they are for the boys with six of the top eleven runners in the field. Of course, they are also in the same situation as the boys of having three meets in a span of six days, so they may not be putting forth their best effort so that they will be ready for the much bigger meet in two days in Duluth. The same goes for the heavy individual favorite Katherine Geist (who competes for Crookston but trains with EGF's team since Crookston's team consists of only two athletes), who was the champion at Sauk Centre with a time of 19:20, her seventh consecutive win this year. She is one of only two Class A runners who are still undefeated at this point in the season, the other runner being Morgan Gehl.

(written by Mark Rice)
TODAY'S MEETS