PREP GIRLS' CROSS COUNTRY: Dragon girls win team title at Marshall Invite

MARSHALL — Placing each of their five scoring runners among the top 10 finishers Monday afternoon, the Adrian Dragons claimed an impressive team title with 20 points at the Marshall Invitational varsity girls’ cross country meet at Independence Park.

Paced by a 1-2 finish from Jordin Kopplow and Austyn Thier, the Dragons won the 12-team meet by a convincing 45 points. Host Marshall was a distant second place with 65 points, followed by Canby/Minneota/Lincoln HI (87), Redwood Valley (105), Murray County Central/Fulda (124), Windom (137), Worthington (166), Tracy-Milroy-Balaton (169) and Springfield/Cedar Mountain (244).

Mountain Lake Christian, Lakeview and Pipestone Area were each incomplete, but MLC’s Whitney Klassen turned in a seventh-place individual finish with a time of 16:27.1 over the 4,000-meter course.

Kopplow built a large lead midway through the race and entered the finish chute with a winning time of 15:21.8. Thier broke away from a pack of runners and edged C/M/LHI’s Leah Jessen (third, 15:52.8) for second place, clocked at 15:46.6.

Megan Sauer (fourth, 15:55.2), Nicole Slater (sixth, 16:11.6) and Morgan Sauer (eighth, seventh team-wise, 16:29.7) locked in Adrian’s low score of 20 with additional top-10 performances, while Hunter Hieronimus (38th, 19:32.2) and Megan Tweet (40th, 19:39.8) also ran for the Dragons.

Worthington’s trio of Meredith Moore (23rd overall, 22nd team-wise, 17:58.3), Alicia Darling (24th, 23rd, 18:00.7) and Stephanie Jaycox (25th, 24th, 18:06.8) ran together for much of the race and finished back-to-back-to-back, leading the Trojans to a seventh-place team result with 166 points.

Jennifer Majerus (50th, 47th, 20:53.1) and Ariana Lopez (53rd, 50th, 22:07.6) completed Worthington’s team score, while teammates Mariah Haffield (23:54.2) and Tyree Murray (24:00.2) finished in 58th and 59th place overall, respectively.

“Our girls ran pretty well today, but they may have been a bit tired from running in Saturday’s meet in Sioux Falls,” WHS head coach Ken Henkels said. “It was fun to see Meredith, Alicia and Stephanie run together and finish the way that they did. I think that this meet will ultimately help our girls in terms of their conditioning and overall toughness.”

Windom had a pair of runners place in the top 20, as Merideth Hentges (12th, 17:06.6) and Kylie Willard (19th, 17:49.1) led the Eagles to their sixth-place team score.

MCC/F’s Seriah Cheadle placed 13th with a time of 17:19.1, while Rebels’ teammate Melissa Gehl was 20th with a time of 17:49.9.

The duo of Elodie Tholen (21st, 17:50.4) and Nichole Iverson (22nd, 17:50.8) were T-M-B’s lead runners and entered the chute simultaneously. PA’s Paige Petersen (20:20.5) finished 47th out of the 63 total runners.

Tags: cross country, pipestone area, murray county central, tracy-milroy-balaton, mountain lake christian, sports, prep, worthington, trojans, adrian, windom, fulda