Grizzlies open season Friday at Fairmont

The WEM/JWP boys and girls cross country teams competed Friday, Aug. 26 in the Fairmont Early Bird Meet.

The girls team placed sixth overall with a score of 127. Marshall nearly had a perfect score, finishing with a score of 20 to easily win the meet. Fairmont placed second (85), JCC third (92), St. Peter fourth (115), and Mountain Lake Area- Comfrey (127). Fairmont had the top individual runner and Marshall runners placed second through seventh.

The boys placed eighth out of 10 teams with a score of 189 points. Marshall placed first with 41 points. They were followed by Fairmont (71), Mountain Lake Area-Comfrey (112), LCWM-Nicollet (113), JCC (115), St. Peter (159), St. James Area (185), WEM, Heron Lake-Okabena (240), and Blue Earth Area (254).

Sophomore Madeline Hoehn and freshman Kwynn Krause led the girls, placing 24th and 25th overall in times of 20:24 and 20:05 on the 4,000-meter course.

Senior Ashlin Keyes placed 34th (12:17), senior Faith Olson placed 42nd (22:21), and sophomore Maddie Heuss placed 49th (23:39). Sophomore Lydia Huelsnitz placed 62nd and Molly Snesrud placed 63rd.

Freshman Caleb Quast was the top boys runner, placing 24th in 15:45 over the 4,000-meter course. Sophomore Luke Cahill placed 27th in 15:52.

Sophomore Alexander Kleve placed 54th (17:29), sophomore Gavin Marinenko placed 59th (17:58), sophomore Ivan Pratt p[aced 62nd (18:21), sophomore Carter Hoehn placed 67th (18:32), senior David Lamp placed 71st (19:00), and sophomore Carson James placed 78th (19:56).

“On the varsity side, we did not have any top finishers, but still some promising finishes nonetheless,” head coach Jon McDonough said. “For example, our returning runners showed huge improvements from this same race the previous year. Carson James improved by 4 minutes, David Lamp improved by over a minute, and Alex Kleve by just over 30 seconds. Our newer runners also showed a good level of competitive running in their first ever meet, including Madeline Hoehn, Ivan Pratt, and Gavin Marinenko.”

MaKenzie and MaKaela Westphal finished in the top 10 of the girls junior high race. MaKenzie finished second place by a very small margin.