Yeah I remember Stocke being really good in 8th and 9th grade, but that's irrelevant now. He is still a great runner, but if Sal hasn't lost why move him back to third? Can't compare xc times on different courses, just isn't the same. Like a previous poster said, looks like polls are really losing credibility. Wonder how many coaches are even voting.
Some big meets coming up this week: 9/15 Lucky Lindy Hutchinson Rochester Mayo Delano Eveleth Lions 9/16 Lakeville Applejack Loyola / Cleveland Blaine 9/17 Eden Prairie Metro
Yeah if Big Lake wins state again this year it wouldn’t be surprising. I was thinking Worthington and Highland Park can make a run at it too. However, both teams have their 1-3 looking good right now, but at 4 and 5, not so much, so they will need to change that. Today Big Lake and Mankato East are facing off so that should show which team is better.
Lucky Lindy: For the second meet in a row, Minnehaha had a guy dominate the JV race and would have scored on their varsity. Not sure why he isn’t running Varsity.
Mayo Invite: sophomore putz from Wisconsin (the guy whose team won state last year) went sub-15. 10 people did. I wonder what the course is like this year. Last year no one even broke 16 on it. In other years a handful of people broke 16 on it https://results.wayzatatiming.com/meets/18046/xc-events/656590/scores Rosemount had a very small spread. 5 studs obviously but I don’t think they have an official front runner this year. If they wanna win state this year they might need one.
Hutchinson invite: Big Lake showed that they should go back to #1 in the rankings after beating Mankato East. East was missing their #2 but the outcome likely would have been the same.
Rosemount’s freshman-and-under class went: 17:45 - 8 18:03 - 9 18:03 - 9 18:06 - 9 18:35 - 9 but we can expect him to improve more than others considering his dad is the coach.
We can also expect some of these to crack Rosemount’s varsity lineup since they have a lot of seniors on this team.
I think this is the best freshman-and-under class out of any others in the state. If Rosemount doesn’t win state this year hopefully those guys continue to improve.
Mayo Invite results are out, CLEARLY short course. Winner dropped almost a minute from previous week, willing to bet most of the rosemount will have a hard time replicating those times at all the rest of the season.
Waconia Invitational Results out, Adam Lueth beating ranked runners for the 3rd week in a row, this time beating Chaska’s Nolan Sutter by 18s (!!). Jefferson raced very well on what looked to be a hard course. They also appear to be missing #2 runner Ian Klein. Still like them as a dark horse top 10. No sure what happened to Sutter as he went 15:30 last week but dropped all the way down to 16:12 here. Makes Lueth’s time more impressive.
The freshman trio at Bloomington Jefferson was really impressive. 17:29 17:52 18:18
So was Orono’s (actually, they have a really nice group of freshmen and under that could maybe carry the team to a state title in class AA in 2025. They are not in the same class as the Wayzatas or Minnetonkas of the world.) 17:19 - 9 18:08 - 9 18:08 - 9 18:56 - 9 19:19 - 9 19:15 - 8 - younger chapman 19:21 - 7
I can imagine those 7th and 8th graders stepping up and maybe joining the class of 2026 trio in the future
Older Chapman does not seem to be where he was last year. Orono is really young this year and could maybe podium next year.
He actually was their #3 at sections (behind the 2 guys who left) last year when he ran a 16:44.
It must’ve been a pain for Hopkins to lose Provenzano to Indiana. They could have made a run for a state berth the next 2 years. But good to see that he’s doing really well and is helping his new team do really well. But this year and next year Hopkins would not be close to the Hopkins 2015 team. They had all 5 scoring guys go under 16 at Heartland. Carmel already did that earlier this season.
As far as Jefferson, worth pointing out a) the 18:18 freshman has a PR of 17:29 (as an 8th grader too), and b) Adam Lueth’s brother is in 9th grade and on the team as well (not turning in great times but with 3 more years to improve who knows)
Chapmans apparent collapse is really interesting as he had a strong track season and ‘21 xc season. Unless he dealt with a summer injury no reason he shouldn’t be significantly faster. He has 2 years left - will be interesting to see if he can turn it around.
Yeah definitely. he can make big time drops. Things like this happened before. Like in Stillwater, Bailey Hesse Withbroe’s brother Joe went from 19s freshman year to sub-17 junior year. And Nick Scheller’s brother Ben went from 19s freshman to sub-17 junior year. And had an even better senior year. Another Scheller was running in the 20s as a freshman, but is doing really well this season. He ran a 16:23 at Hopkins.
And Jefferson also has a 7th grader behind only 4 9th graders (and is scoring for the team already) so he could make a big jump too.
Top 10 adjusted times for 5k (just keeping same pace so actually 5k times would be slower)
1. Manny Putz (Onalaska, WI) - 15:42
2. Ryan Kilibarda (Stillwater) - 16:18
3. George Edgar (Rosemount) - 16:25
4. Ryan Mulrooney (Rosemount) - 16:25
5. Andrew Schultz (Rosemount) - 16:28
6. David Obst (Kassan-Mantorville/Triton) - 16:33
7. Will Harder (Rosemount) - 16:36
8. Joe McNeil (Rosemount) - 16:38
9. Camden Janiszeski (Luverne) - 16:44
10. Owen Janiszeski (Luverne) - 16:44
Still an impressive race from Rosemount showcasing an insane spread (13s in adjusted time) for having 5 under 17. Like MN Reve had pointed out, definitely still lacking a superstar. Harder should drop in rankings this week but hard to say given last weeks abysmal rankings.
Conversion to 5K times using hillrunner ( https://www.hillrunner.com/calculators/race-conversion/ ) Putz - 15:46 Rosemount guys: Edgar - 16:28 Mulrooney - 16:30 Schultz - 16:33 Harder - 16:40 McNeil - 16:42 Grunklee - 17:48 Beaudette (won the JV race but also scored for them at state) - 18:22 Seems like a huge gap behind their #5, so their 1-5 better be on when it matters. Races such as state and NXR. Or maybe a 6th/7th will come along, which will help. MPLS Washburn seems to have this going too, but they do have a front guy. Not sold on the fact that their 2-5 gap is closing but it seems to be a work in progress. And again they have nothing behind their 5th.
Lakeville North was 5-deep at the start of the season but they might have found a 6th too.
Amanda Overgaauw ran a 17:24 PR yesterday at a southwestern MN meet. She just keeps getting better & better! I really hope to see her at Nike Heartland in November. I'd like to see what she could do on the Yankton Trails course. I think Wayzata's Abbey Nechanicky is the #1 favorite, but Overgaauw would be a strong candidate for one of the top-5 spots.
For comparison, I looked back and Overgaauw ran 18:16 on this course a year ago. In 2019, Morgan Gehl (the 2019 Class A XC state champion) ran 18:06. So it doesn't appear to be a particularly fast course. Overgaauw is just that good right now!