Here’s wishing the best of luck to the Murray County Central / Fulda girls’ cross country team in its quest of for a Section 3A team championship when they compete at the Madison Golf Course Thursday.
The Warriors, ranked third in the state among all 200-plus Class A teams, have won seven meet titles this fall — only finishing second twice, both times to Class AA power Marshall. In two meets this season, MCC / Fulda has outrun the four-time defending Section 3A champion Luverne Cardinals.
The well-balanced Warriors edged the Cardinals at Worthington (September 12) by five points, 41-46, for the team title. Later, at Adrian (October 8), with both teams running short-handed, MCC / Fulda finished 14 points (67-81) better than Luverne, taking second place behind Marshall.
Last fall, running at Luverne, the host Cardinals won the section team title with a low score of 51 (2-4-10-17-18), while the Warriors were third with 111 points (1-23-25-29-33). Finishing between LHS and MCC / F was Lac qui Parle Valley / Dawson-Boyd (5-6-11-37-40) with 99 points, 12 better than the Warriors (known yet as the Rebels last year), securing section runner-up honors and a team trip to the state meet.
The Eagles (LQPV/D-B) are not near as good this year and the sectional girls’ team title certainly shapes up to be a two-team duel — up front — between the Cardinals and the Warriors.
Individually, MCC / Fulda ace Morgan Gehl is a clear favorite to win for a fourth straight year, while Luverne’s Tenley Nelson and Canby / Minneota’s Grace Drietz are also among the best Class A runners in Minnesota.
This writer hopes that Adrian senior Moriah Bullerman, who has been a top-notch area cross country for each of the past six seasons, is able to have a great race Thursday and earn another opportunity to run at next week’s state meet at St. Olaf College in Northfield.
MCC / Fulda runners Maverick Beckmann (this year’s Red Rock Conference champion), Lukas Stapek and Justin Clarke, along with HL-O runners Paul Salentiny and eighth-grader Tim Salentiny, could all challenge for a boys’ state-meet qualification.
Clarke, who has missed most of the season with a strained Achilles Tendon, has earned three straight previous state-meet qualifications, including a most impressive fourth-place section meet performance last year as a junior.
In wild fashion, the Houston Astros are back in the World Series after winning Game 6 on a dramatic ninth-inning walk-off home run by little Jose Altuve by a final score of 6-4. Altuve’s blast was only the second time that the Yankees were beat in an elimination game in walk-off fashion.
When was the other time? It was Game 7 of the 1960 World Series at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh when Pirates second baseman Bill Mazerowski’s memorable blast lifted Pittsburgh to a dramatic 10-9 victory.
How about those Minnesota Gophers, ranked 17th in the country (Division I, college football), after becoming a perfect 7-0 with Saturday’s 42-7 thrashing of Rutgers — the Scarlet Knights?
This coming Saturday (the 26th), College Game Day will be broadcasting from Brookings, South Dakota as they will highlight the big clash between the South Dakota State Jackrabbits and perennial power North Dakota State.
The Bison are — as almost always — undefeated (7-0), while the Jacks (6-1) lost a close opener to the Gophers (28-21) and have won six straight games since by a combining winning margin of 227-81. NDSU has outscored its seven opponents by a combined spread of 274-72.
Both teams are 3-0 in the Missouri Valley Conference, tied for first at the top of the 10-team league. Game time Saturday is 2 p.m. at SDSU — where Adrian’s Darwin Gonnerman was a big-time running back for the Jackrabbits back in the late 1960s.
