LOON LAKE -- Paced by the one-two finish of eighth-grader Madison Schandelmeier and junior Makayla Hohn, the Luverne Cardinals edged Martin County West, 37-39, for the varsity girls' team title of Jackson County Central's, KKOJ/KRAQ Subway Invitational high school cross country meet at the Loon Lake Lake Golf Course Thursday afternoon.
Schandelmeier pulled away for an impressive individual gold-medalist performance, clocked at 14:56 for the 4,000-meter course.
Hohn, who has missed a couple of meets with a leg injury, held off the challenges of MCW runners Whitney Smith (15:35) and Morgan Larson (15:57) and earned the silver medal with a fine time of 15:26.
MCW's Brooke Anderson was fifth (16:03), followed by Whitney Klassen (16:04) of Mountain Lake Area, who paced a well-balanced Wolverines' squad to a third-place team finish with 68 points.
Luverne eighth-grader Mariah Aukes was seventh (16:05) and MCW's Noah Bjerken (16:09) claimed eighth.
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Worthington -- paced by the individual medalist-performances of sophomore Alicia Darling (16:10) and freshman Meredith Moore (16:11), who placed ninth and 10th, respectively -- was a solid fourth in the team standings with 95 points.
"Both Alicia and Meredith ran great second miles," praised WHS head coach Ken Henkels. "They each passed several runners and moved up progressively during that second mile, which put them in the top 10, among the medalists."
Stephanie Jaycox (15th, 16:38), Arian Lopez (27, 18:14) and Kacey Contreras (34, 19:31) completed Worthington's scoring, while Rachel Koller (35, 19:42) and Hope Reeves (37, 20:59) were the Trojans' sixth and seventh runners.
Blue Earth Area (120) and Springfield/Cedar Mountain (184) also had complete teams, while JCC, Windom and Hills-Beaver Creek were incomplete.
Luverne, which was running in its first Minnesota meet of the season, clinched the team title when junior Anna Tofteland (16:31) and eighth-grader Zayna Hustoft (16:37) captured the 13th and 14th places among runners from the complete teams, giving LHS scoring places 1-2-7-13-14.
MCW countered with a 3-4-5-8-19 performance from its top five.
The Mavericks won the team title at Worthington's Turkey Trot a week ago and MLA was coming off a team victory at Windom on Monday.
"We knew that both MCW and MLA had good teams," exclaimed LHS head coach Pete Janiszeski. "Our girls have been running against some stiff competition in our early meets in South Dakota and Nebraska, so this was a good meet for us to see how we're measuring up here."
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The Cardinals, like several area teams -- including Worthington -- will run at the Rebel Invitational at Slayton Tuesday.
In the girls' junior high 1,600-meter race, Southwest Star Concept seventh-grader Rachel Salentiny won her fourth race of the season, running the course in 5:57.
JCC's Annika Lilleberg (6:06), SSC's MaKayla Edwards (6:09), Luverne's Monique Aanenson (6:12), JCC's Jayni Anderson (6:17), Worthington's Jessica Darling (6:17), JCC's Molly Boyum (6:27), Luverne's Carly Serie (6:28), SSC's Brianna Preston (6:43) and Windom's Faith Willard (6:45) completed the top-10 individuals in the 33-finisher field.
JCC (28), Worthington (41) and MLA (52) were the top three teams.
