Recap: Lake Conference Championships Doesn't Disappoint


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The Lake Conference is home to Minnetonka, Edina, Wayzata, Eden Prairie, Buffalo, Hopkins, Buffalo, and STMA. Most of those schools are constantly among the best in the state, so the Lake Conference Championships is the crown jewel of the conference meet schedule, and like usual, the meet did not disappoint!

Run at Gale Woods Farm, the meet this year was host to elite individual talents such as Ali Weimer, Sydney Drevlow, Nick Gilles, and more! The team matchups were also really close and comprised of a lot of the top talent in Class AAA. 

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Lake Conference Full Results

Boys Varsity Recap

The boy's individual race went as expected with Nick Gilles winning by a large margin by running the second-best time in the state this season of 15:16.30, only behind Sam Scotts 15:12 from yesterdays Minneapolis City Conference Championships. He won by 32 seconds over Caden Nordberg of STMA. This is the first win of the season for Gilles. 

Gilles now has the 3rd fastest time ever at Gale Wood Farms only behind Connor Olson (15:09), and Sam Scott (15:12). Both Scott and Gilles will have a chance to break that record at their respective section meets. 

Gilles, Nordberg, Jared Gregoire, Andrew Vos, and James Dorado all broke the 16:00 5K barrier at this meet. Other than Gilles, all the other boys broke that barrier for the first time in their careers. Vos PR'd by 37 seconds, Dorado by 18 seconds, Gregoire by 33 seconds, and Nordberg by 28 seconds.  

No one at the 2020 Lake Conference Championships ran under 16:00. This was the fastest Lake Conference Championships since the 2015 edition where there were 8 runners under 16:00 for the 5K. 

On the boy's team side, the race was a bit more interesting with the Wayzata boys winning over Minnetonka by 5 points (45-50). While the Minnetonka boys put Gilles and Vos in the top 5 overall, the Wayzata boys utilized their pack approach to put all 5 scoring runners between 6th place and 12th and running between 16:00 and 16:25 to rack up their 45 points. Of note, Wayzata put all ten of their varsity runners in this race under 17:00. 

Compared to our virtual meet results which ended up Wayzata (34) and Minnetonka (78), this was a much closer race than expected. 

Girls Varsity Recap

Going into the race we thought Sydney Drevlow and Ali Weimer would be by each other's side for almost the whole race...well Weimer had other plans. Weimer ran like a whole different runner en route to a huge PR of 17:17.90 to beat Drevlow by almost 24 seconds. This is a 23 second PR for Weimer and a 26 second seasonal best time. This is her fifth straight win of the season and the 37th best time nationally this season (as of this writing). 

With her time of 17:17.90, Weimer now has the Lake Conference Championships record. She beats out Abbey Nechanickys time of 17:29.40 from last year. This is also the second-fastest time ever at Gale Woods Farm for a girl, only behind Emily Coverts 16:56 from 2018. 

Hopkins standout freshman Drevlow and Daphne Grobstein finished just behind Weimer in the individual race. Drevlow finished with a 17:41 just off her PR of 17:38 and Grobstein set a new PR of 18:13. As of this moment, they both rank in the top 50 of their class nationally. 

In the team race, it was a meet to remember with only 18 points separating Minnetonka, Edina, Wayzata, and STMA. Minnetonka ended up being the winner in their closest race all season, winning by 1 point over an Edina team that finally was finally able to live up to their vast potential. The final score ended up being 58 for Minnetonka and 59 for Edina. It came down to Minnetonka's Abby Downin and Kate LeBlanc beating out Edina's Lauren Cossack for those last few points in the end.

The Edina Girls coming into the meet had an average of 19:28.58 as a team for the season with everyone's best time. Here they shattered their pre-meet expectations and had an average of 18:50.74 to almost knock off Minnetonka. 

Not too far behind them were the Wayzata girls with 68 points and the STMA girls with 76 points. If Abbey Nechanicky had been healthy enough to run, it would've made for one of the most highly contested Lake Conference Championships ever.