JCC boys win Section 2A

MONTGOMERY — After twice finishing second in major meets this fall on the sixth-runner tiebreaker, the Jackson County Central Huskies won the biggest race of 2008 without having to break a tie. The JCC boys are heading to the state cross country meet as Section 2A champions.

By: Les Knutson, Worthington Daily Globe

MONTGOMERY — After twice finishing second in major meets this fall on the sixth-runner tiebreaker, the Jackson County Central Huskies won the biggest race of 2008 without having to break a tie.

The JCC boys are heading to the state cross country meet as Section 2A champions.

Putting its top three runners — Matt Kocak, Marc Strom and Justin Cook — among the top seven finishers in the 117-runner field Thursday, JCC won the first-place trophy with a low score of 80 points.

Perennial power Fairmont finished second with 86 points.

“It’s a great feeling,” exclaimed an elated JCC co-head coach Brad Strom. “We finally got the monkey off our back and broke the jinx of finishing in a tie.”

The Huskies had lost tie-breaking decisions to Mankato East at Fairmont’s I-90 Invitational (Oct. 2) and to Redwood Valley at the Southwest Conference meet (Oct. 14).

Kocak, Strom and Cook ran stride-for-stride together throughout most of the 5,000-meter race on the Montgomery Golf Club, finishing within nine seconds and four places of each other.

“We are so excited for them,” declared JCC co-head coach Kerri Kocak. “We had hoped that all three of our lead guys could make the top 10, but it’s going to be so much more fun to go as a team.”

LeSeuer-Henderson, which had the individual winner, finished third with 96 points, followed by Blue Earth Area (113) and defending section champion St. James (122) in the top five of the team standings.

Sibley East (222) finished a distant sixth, followed by Mankato Loyola (234), Martin County West (238), Mountain Lake/Butterfield-Odin (270), Madelia/Truman (285), Maple River (291), New Ulm Cathedral/Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s (293), Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop (293), St. Peter (297), Montgomery-Lonsdale (353) and Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial (360), completing the list of 16 full teams.

Windom/Southwestern United, Waterville-Elysian-Morristown and Martin Luther were each incomplete.

L-H sophomore Andrew Gerdts won the individual title, clocked at 17 minutes flat.

Sibley East sophomore Andrew Thies finished second (17:04), and then Kocak won the race for third, running the course in 17:21.

Early leaders Brian Christiansen (St. James) and Derek Ziegelman (Fairmont), finished fourth and fifth, respectively, with times of 17:22 and 17:25.

Strom had one of his best races of the season and took sixth-place, clocked at 17:25.

Cook, who has been steady all-year long, placed seventh with his time of 17:30.

Completing the list of top 10 individuals — qualifying for the state meet — were Jonathan Sarber (St. James), Joe Goettl (Mankato Loyola) and Matt Stoffel (MCW), running respective times of 17:32, 17:34 and 17:36.

Making the JCC victory possible were the finishes of fourth and fifth runners, Sam Hendrickson (27th, 18:27) and Jon Troe (38th, 18:49) who both made the top 40.

Fairmont’s top five finished 5-11-17-25-28.

JCC’s sixth and seventh runners were Ben Kocak (49th, 19:09) and Aaron Fields (55th, 19:27), as all seven Huskies finished among the upper half.

“All of our boys had a good day,” Brad Strom said. “Each one of them played a role in us accomplishing our team goal.”

Fields is JCC’s only senior. Matt Kocak, Hendrickson and Troe are juniors, while Cook is a sophomore and Ben Kocak is a freshman.

Leading ML/B-O was eighth-grader Adam Blomgren (42nd, 19:00). Kyle Blomgren (44, 19:06), Michal Balla (45, 19:06), Nathan Dukes (64, 19:54) and Mark Harder (87, 21:08) completed the Wolverine top five.

Sophomore John Curley (36th, 18:45) paced W/SWU, while Cody Galer (77, 20:27), Ryan Vesey (81, 20:35) and Michael Farrell (86, 21:06) also ran for the Eagles.

JCC and Fairmont will both compete at the state meet in Northfield Nov. 1.