Morgan Gehl won her third consecutive cross country race of the 2019 season last Tuesday, September 10, racing to a first-place finish of the 11-team Marshall Invitational at Independence Park.
Gehl cruised to victory with a 5,000-meter time of 18:44.4, finishing well ahead of Grace Drietz of Canby (19:21.7) and Bellamy Sukalski of Marshall (20:11.1).
Paced by Sukalski and fifth-place finisher Jersey Leyson (20:36.3), the Tigers won the team title with a low score of 37 (3-5-6-11-12), defeating MCC / Fulda by 16 points. The Warriors finished a clear second with 53 their total of 53 (1-8-9-17-18), while Redwood Valley (4-10-14-23-25) edged Canby / Minneota (2-7-16-19-33) by one point, 76-77, for third place.
Pipestone Area (136), Springfield (136) and Tracy-Milroy-Balaton (204) also notched complete team scores, while Windom, Adrian, Yellow Medicine East and Lakeview were each incomplete.
Warrior freshman Ashley Overgaauw placed ninth overall (eighth in the team scoring) with her time of 21:12.4, freshman twin sister Amanda Overgaauw (ninth, eighth, 21:13.3), junior Josie Harms (19th, 17, 22:15.9) and sophomore Ella Stapek (20th, 18, 22:19.8) completed the well-balanced scoring for the Warriors, who had entered the meet ninth-ranked among all Minnesota Class girls’ teams.
Eighth-grader Brylei Schreier (23rd, 20, 22:54.4), junior Victoria Pierson (25th, 22, 23:37.0) and sophomore Ryanna Schreier (38th, 24:38.0) also completed the varsity race for MCC / F.
Sophomore Chelby Keesteloot led the Warriors in the JV race over the same course, placing 17th with her time of 27:41.4. Freshman Megan Bakke (21st, 28:23.9), sophomore Meline Dernoncourt (27th, 30:04.8) and senior Kenzie Granum (34th, 32:10.3) were MCC / F’s other three JV runners.
Lily Daniels places twice among the first seven
Eighth-grader Lily Daniels ran a pair of strong races last week, twice leading the MCC / F junior high girls. Lily finished sixth overall (third in the team scoring) at Marshall with a time of 8:59.9 over a 2,000-meter course. At Worthington, she finished seventh overall (second in team scoring) with a time of 8:05.5 over a course of about 1,700 meters.
At Marshall, the young Warriors placed fourth in the team standings with 65 points as eighth-grader Lindsey Hause (14th overall, eight team scoring, 9:40.2), seventh-grader Courtney Gengler (28th, 16, 10:43.9), seventh-grader Sophia Nelson (29, 17, 10:46.7) and eighth-grader Molly Clarke (35, 21, 11:23.2) completed the scoring (3-8-16-17-21).
Hause (26th, 16, 9:02.3), Gengler (34, 20, 9:31.6), Clarke (40, 22, 10:12.3) and Nelson (43, 23, 10:32.6) combined with Daniels to score 83 points (2-16-20-22-23) at Worthington and claim a fourth-place team finish.
