Oliver Paleen wins Minnesota state meet!

Hussein wasn’t even top 7 on his own team last year, now he’s #5 in the region.

Heartland region seems pretty weak this year. Is it always this meh?

In Fall 2014 and 2015 it was actually pretty strong.

In 2014 Wayzata & Edina finished 2nd and 9th at NXN respectively.

In 2015 Hopkins, Edina and Wayzata finished 7th, 13th, and 14th respectively. The 4th best Team in the Heartland in 2015 Washburn was ranked somewhere in the top 30 too.

In Fall 2013, Edina and Wayzata finished 10th and 15th respectively, but Wayzata beat Edina at conference, sections, and state that season. At NXN 2013, 6 of Wayzata’s 7 guys did not run their best race.

On the girls side, before the season I thought this region was going to be stronger than it actually is now. Wayzata looked like a team that was going to be the NXN title contender, but the health problems of 3 key seniors kept them from even autoqualifying for NXN. The departure of the Pings weakened the region on the individuals side as well.

Is Wolfgram injured again or sick? Is Gehl?

Most years, the girls individuals are pretty good and occasionally there are some good teams or boys individuals, but not very consistently and it's rare they have a serious At-Large candidate.

This year, girls individuals are ok but not as good as previous years. The girls teams are about the same as usual, #3 Wazyata might get some consideration but probably not quite good enough to get a bid.

The boys side is pretty bad this year.

Seeing some young talent wrote:

Hopkins has a 7th grade girl that placed 9th in the Champ race.

Wayzata had an 8th grade boy go 16:55 in the rising stars race, and 2 8th graders that finished ahead of him there ran a sub 16:30.

Sydney Drevlow is her name. I saw her run 5 or 6 times this season, and she's definitely got major talent.

She ran a 17:46 PR at Heartland (which I saw in person). She's very tough.

A couple of years ago I saw another 7th grade girl scorch a 17:07 at Heartland, which amazed a lot of the folks there that day. (I remember overhearing one guy saying, "How does a 12 year-old girl nearly break seventeen?")

What was her name again? Oh yeah...………...Lauren Ping. =)

Looking forward to seeing where Paleen, Scheller, and Hussein end up going to college. Seems like the UMN boys team is becoming a less popular choice for MN state champs and other top runners in that state. Only 2 men who graduated last year are on their team now and neither finished in the top 5 at state or top 10 at Heartland last year. Looking at the U of M’s program we can see why it’s becoming a less popular choice.

None are fast enough to really go anywhere else so I would expect MN.

MN insider wrote:

None are fast enough to really go anywhere else so I would expect MN.

The UMN would be a great one for Shuayb Hussein, he’d be on a team with his older brother again

Oliver Paleen is going to UW Madison

Meh, not an exciting choice. Mick hasn't developed the American guys like Jerry did. Just a lot of international guys who were super talented before arriving....I don't see him ever helping as most guys of his ability level have done nothing under Mick/Gavin...

His stats are below what the Badgers normally recruit. Much faster runners are on tge roster not competing.

Wiscon wrote:

His stats are below what the Badgers normally recruit. Much faster runners are on tge roster not competing.

You never know how he’ll end up doing at Wisconsin. Michael Van Voorhis, who graduated a decade ago from another St Paul school (Central) never even made all-state in XC and he ended up leading the team in WI.

His first year in college he was competing in the Wisconsin Track Club (NIRCA) since Byrne thought he wasn’t D1 caliber at that time.

Yes we do. You make it sound like he has a 50% chance. If you look at the 50 guys who have made the roster since 2011, nearly every one was better than Paleen so the odss are probably 5% that he makes it. If you want to pick random names out, where is Gessner? Where are some if the other 8:50 guys who never made the roster? Really dumb decision to spend good mone to go to Wisconsin. Minnesota is ranked 1st in indoor track in the region.

Not even Iowa State could develop Gessner. What about Schrobilgen, Van Voorhis, Krause?

Wayzata had an 8th grade boy go 16:55 in the rising stars race…..

So now this guy is a senior and he has been out since the end of track season, and if he doesn’t return, Wayzata will have a big 4-5 gap. They will still win state even with him not back, but this could hurt their ability to achieve their postseason aspirations. Luckily for them is that post-season is long ways away

and 2 8th graders that finished ahead of him there ran a sub 16:30.
One of them won Griak in 2021 and is now a favorite to win the state meet.

The other one hasn’t raced this fall and missed out so much of track season

Minnesota has reciprocity with Wisconsin. Gaining access to a top 20 public institution at U of MN rates is in fact a very smart decision.

#4 for Wisconsin at Nuttycombe