CROSS COUNTRY: Kopplow, Thier, Pater nab high places at Milaca

MILACA — Competing in the Class AA division of the huge high school cross country meet, known as the Milaca Mega Meet, at Stones Throw Golf Course Saturday, the Adrian Dragons ran into some stiff competition and finished third in the team standings — among 21 complete teams — with 84 points.

St. Cloud Cathedral impressively won the team title with a low score of 55 points on team finish places 2-3-15-17-18.

Esko, which had four of the top-14 overall finishers, was a solid second with a score of 70 (1-8-11-13-37), while Adrian (5-12-20-22-25) — which was the second team to have all five of its scoring runners in the chute — was a clear third, far ahead of the rest of the field.

Minnehaha Academy was fourth with 161 points, while Fairmont (fifth, 169), Montevideo (ninth, 241), Lac qui Parle Valley/Dawson-Boyd (10th, 289), Redwood Valley (13th, 349) and Blue Earth Area (18th, 459) were the other complete teams from southwestern Minnesota.

Cook County, Two Harbors was 21st with 572 points, while nine other teams were incomplete, without five finishing runners.

“It’s a big meet with more runners and teams than the state meet,” noted Adrian head coach John Olson. “We had a pretty good day, but both Esko and, especially St. Cloud Cathedral had even better days.”

Leading Adrian was Jordin Kopplow, who placed sixth overall (fifth teamwise) among 155 finishers with a 4,000-meter time of 15:13.9.

Austyn Thier finished less than 13 seconds behind Kopplow in 13th-place (12th team), clocked at 15:26.7.

“Both Jordin and Austyn really had outstanding runs and I thought that Morgan Sauer had one of her best races of the season,” summed up Olson. “The girls were a bit hard on themselves after the results came in, thinking they could have done better. But, we did well, both individually and as a team. We have some work to do yet and will continue to strive to make progress.”

Megan Sauer (15:41.5), Nicole Slater (15:56.8) and Morgan Sauer (16:13.4) completed Adrian’s scoring with team places 20, 22 and 25, respectively.

Megan Tweet (105, 94, 18:36.4) and Haley Howe (125, 112, 19:01.3) were Adrian’s sixth and seventh varsity runners Saturday, while Hunter Hieronimus (18:29.4) competed in the enormous 406-finisher junior varsity race — all three classes combined — and finished ahead of 312 girls in 94th place.

St. Cloud Christian sophomore McKenzie Holt won the Class AA varsity individual title with a blistering time of 14:46.9, while Esko junior Marisa Shady was second (14:58.8), followed by St. Cloud Cathedral runners Elena Danielson (15:04.7) and Morgan Durbin (15:08.2). Fairmont senior Lauren Friese was seventh with a time of 15:17.1.

Pater finishes 16th in Class A boys’ race

While Adrian opted to compete up in Class AA with its girls’ team, the Dragons ran in Class A in the boys’ race.

Jase Pater gave the Dragons a third top-20 finisher Saturday when he placed 16th — among 156 finishers — by covering the 5,000-meter course in 17:44.7.

Kody Henning clocked a time of 19:09.5 and finished among the upper half, placing 74th.

Bryon Schuldt, a senior from Nevis, won the individual title with an outstanding time of 16:17, while St. James’ junior John Surber (16:57) finished third (first team), leading the Saints to a fourth-place team finish with 149 points (1-22-27-44-55). Crosby-Ironton won the team title with a low score of 50 (5-6-10-11-18).

Meghan Henricksen, a senior from Mankato Loyola, won the 158-runner Class A girls’ race with a time of 15:15.6 — which was 1.7 seconds slower than Kopplow’s sixth-place time in Class AA.

Adrian has more than a week to prepare for its next meet, which is not until Oct. 6 when the Dragons will compete in the Luverne Invitational.

Tags: cross country, sports, prep, adrian