BY LES KNUTSON
The Globe
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- A trio of Trojan cross country runners, all sophomores, each placed among the first 37 finishers at the huge Nike Heartland Preview high school cross country meet Saturday at Yankton Trail Park.
Running in a highly-competitive field of 89 finishers from 11 complete teams, Worthington’s Sena Uli placed 30th in the varsity girls’ 5,000-meter race with a time of 20:58.18.
Sophie Whicher, a senior from Minnetonka and Minnesota’s top-ranked Class AA runner, won the race by more than 75 seconds with an amazing time of 17:39.19.
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In the boys’ race over the same course, a total of 117 runners completed the distance. Leading the way was Derick Peters of West Central High School of South Dakota (Hartford-Humboldt) with a time of 15:15.52, 40 seconds ahead of Minnetonka’s Adam Wilkinson (15:55.37).
Christian Lietz (36th, 17:36.61) and Adam Koller (37th, 17:37.05) entered the chute next to each other as the lead runners for the Trojans, were finished ninth in the team standings (out of 13 complete teams) with 238 points, just two points behind Harrisburg’s (S.D.) total of 238.
Minnetonka won the team title with a mere 25 points (1-3-4-5-12), well ahead of Sioux Falls Washington’s score of 65.
Worthington junior Andrew Huber was 49th (17:57.33), while freshman Jordan Melendez (72nd, 18:31.03), senior Jackson Bonnett (75th, 18:44.49), junior Tad Stewart (77th, 18:54.48), senior Caleb Schreiber (86th, 19:15.37) and junior Blaine Doeden (91st, 19:23.23) also ran in the varsity race.
In the team scoring, Lietz, Koller, Huber, Melendez and Bonnett (32-33-45-63-65) were the Trojans’ top five.
Uli was the only WHS girl to run in the varsity race Saturday. Twelve Trojans ran in the girls’ junior varsity race, which had a total of 137 finishers.
Worthington finished eighth among 13 complete teams with 239 points (16-32-40-73-78).
Senior Jessica Darling (17th overall, 16th team scoring, 22:29.97), freshman Maranda Thier (34th, 32, 23:37.06), eighth-grader Jenna Hoffman (44th, 40, 23:53.74), freshman Liz Spiegelhoff (87th, 73, 25:48.53) and freshman Gyi Nedoh (93rd, 78, 25:57.71) were Worthington’s scoring runners.
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The Trojans were seventh in the team scoring of the boys’ junior varsity competition with 224 points on scoring places 39-42-44-46-53.
Leading WHS in the JV race was sophomore Bryan Rameriz (55th, 39, 20:18.13), followed by junior Davis Moore (60, 42, 20:24.55), eighth-grader Grant Pederson (62, 44, 20:38.58), seventh-grader Miles Fischer (66, 46, 20:43.74) and eighth-grader Alex Langerud (73, 53, 20:58.96).
There were 12 complete teams and 170 finishing runners in the boys’ junior varsity race.
