Poll: Minnesota Boys and Girls Runner of the Week


From left to right: Marissa Long, Daniel Vanacker, Kate LeBlanc, and Lance Nemecek

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We have had some record-breaking and incredible performances this week, it was tough to choose just four boys and girls for the polls, but we had to anyways!

With the first few weeks of the cross country season, we can now go week by week to determine our participants for boys and girls runner of the week! This poll will be for performances from September 5th to September 12th. 

Each will there will be four boys and four girls for each poll. Participants are based on the MileSplit Minnesota staff's opinions. The rest is up to you!

Runner of the Week Winners

WeekBoys WinnerGirls Winner
1Emmet GerresAli Weimer

So without further ado...



Daniel Vanacker had the top time of 15:32.10 from the Forest Lake SEC Tri last season. At the start of the season, it was his only sub 16:00 performance. Well now, he has back-to-back sub 16:00 performances after his win at the Anoka Steve Hoag Invitational. He ran a 15:56.20 to take the win by 4 seconds over Nick Gilles. 

We thought Sam Scott was impressive last week while winning the St. Olaf High School Showcase. Well, he had to one-up himself this week en route to a win at the Hopkins Bauman/Rovn Invitational. He was a time of 15:22.20 to PR for the second week in a row, win by 38 seconds, and run the third-fastest time ever at Gale Wood Farms (Only behind Jaret Carpenter and Connor Olson). 

Lance Nemecek is one of the big winners of the week with a big PR to run his first 5K under 17:00 minutes. His previous personal best was 17:22.80 back in 2018. The senior hadn't run faster than 17:38 since that performance but finally broke through with a time of 16:56.04 at the Tri-City United Gerry Smith Invitational. 

Nick Gilles running at the Anoka Steve Hoag Invitational and the Nike Heartland Preview Meet has had 2nd place and 3rd place finish against some elite competition. At Anoka, he went head-to-head against Daniel Vanacker and finished only 4 seconds behind him.  At the Nike Heartland Preview, he went up against some of South Dakotas best and finished with a 15:45.95. 



Sydney Drevlow now has the best time in the state after running a 17:38 at the Hopkins Bauman/Rovn Invitational. She is one of only two runners to run sub 18:00 this season, the other being Ali Weimer, and she has now has a new 5K PR, beating her old personal best of 17:46.80. She won the race by 55 seconds over Marissa Long. 

Kaelyn Nelson finally broke through the 19:00 5K barrier for the first time after running an 18:47.60 at the Anoka Steve Hoag Invitational. Her previous best time was 19:17.70. She won the race by 12 seconds ahead of Irondales Elizabeth VanLoon. 

Minnetonka Girls took home their second consecutive meet title with a convincing win at the Nike Heartland Preview meet. They took the title by having their top five runners finish with a dominant 45 points (5,6,9,11,14) with their other two runners finishing 16th and 21st. They went up against one of South Dakota's best in O'Gormans High School. 

Marissa Long set a big PR at the Hopkins Bauman/Rovn Invitational to match her best finish at a cross country meet by finishing 2nd overall, only behind Sydney Drevlow. Her time of 18:33.20 beat her previous PR of 19:33.59 by a whole minute!