- Boys and Girls Class AA -
Coming in as a clear favorite to repeat as MN State Champion is MN#1 Wayzata. They are led by seniors Danny Ducharme and Jeremy Drenckhahn (MN#9/#6 respectively.) This team runs as a pack as evident by there spreads of less than 30 seconds last year. They lost two of their top5 runners last year, but have "many" young runners looking to step up and fill the void. Another team that always seems to "reload" is Eden Prairie. They are coming into this season with 5 returners with a 3200m pr of 10:00 or better and are led by seniors Abdi Abditon and Bobby Davis. Always an exceptional team that peaks for state, so don't be surprised if they start off slow, because they'll be contending for the state title come November 1st. After these two teams, there is a mix of teams competing. In the mix is Stillwater, Brainerd, Edina, Willmar, Owatonna and White Bear Lake. Stillwater returns 4 of their top 7 from last year led by senior Lucas Zenk and junior Ryan Nichols. Stillwater has one of the great coaches in Scott Christenson and one can be sure that he'll have the ponies ready to go this year. Brainerd coming off a 3rd place finish at state loses 3 strong runners from last years team but has a strong group of juniors and will be led by senior Thomas Ruttger (MN#5). Edina is in the always tough section 6 with Wayzata and Eden Prairie, so one of these 3 teams will not be at the state meet come Nov. 1st. Edina is led by the Gits twins, Colton and Hunter. They have their work cut out to get to state as will Wayzata and EP. Willmar returns the top returning runner from the state meet in Mahad Hassan. After that, it is unclear for how the order will shake out. A new transfer from Maine in Sadam Abdi could help the team out a lot. Owatonna and White Bear Lake are two teams who have depth and lots of it. Neither school has a front runner but both schools are very deep and could shake up the top 5 come Nov. 1st as well. Other teams to look out for are Moorhead, Alexandria and Lakeville South and Lakeville North.
On the individual side, there is no dominant and nationally ranked runners like there has been in recent years. Coming back as MN#1 is Mahad Hassan of Willmar. He looks to have a bounce back season after a sub-par track season. Right behind him is Mpls. South and MN#2 Robel Kebede. Kebede is recovering from a hamstring injury from track, but should be 100% come the start of cross country. Another runner to reckon with will be Alexandria's Drew Paradis MN#3. Paradis has always been in the shadow of fellow conference member Hassan and will surely be looking forward to change that this year. Another CLC runner is Thomas Ruttger of Brainerd who comes in after a strong track season. These 3 runners will get to compete against each other often this season. Winona has another top runner in junior John-Michael Brandt, yes he's not a "Heath". But coming in as the top rated junior, Brandt will have plenty to look forward to this year to try to take down the senior class runners. Wayzata's two top runners of Jeremy Drenckhahn and Danny Ducharme will also be in contention with the front runners, although with their team's race strategy, don't expect them to be leading races until the last mile or so. Some other runners that will be in contention are John Holt of Roseville, Eric Truedson of Bemidji, Kamal Jarso of St.Paul Central, Zac Mellon of Buffalo, Ryan Evans of Centennial, Nick Emmans of Minnetonka and Marty Joyce of Woodbury.
Pre-season state rankings are out along with my own preseason rankings too.
A big mix of teams are in contention, we'll start with the defending champions in Burnsville first. Burnsville was a very tight pack of 5 runners, posting a spread of 7.6 seconds at state! They only return 4 of their 5 #1 runners though, after that there was a huge drop-off, so if they can find a solid 5th runner, they'll be up there. Eden Prairie comes in returning their top 3 runners including MN#2 senior Cassy Opitz. They lose 3 valuable seniors, but as with their boys team, EP always comes up with new strong runners to replace the graduated and will be peaked for the state meet. Minnetonka, section competition for EP, returns all but their #2 from last year. They are led by senior Emily Meese MN#8. As always we need to count on Lakeville North to be in the mix as they are led by Michelle Volz and co. The company with her is a very young team of 2 8th graders, 1 freshman and a sophomore. Prior Lake, who beat Burnsville in the section 3AA meet last year, returns all 7 of their state runners and are led by front running sisters Meghan and Sarah Heuer. They only have one senior on their team which is Sarah. Another team like Prior Lake is White Bear Lake led by perennial senior runners Katie Moraczewski and Rachel Drake. One team to look out for is Woodbury, who took third in their section to White Bear Lake and Roseville last year. Woodbury returns all 7 runners and will have much motivation riding on their shoulders to get to the state meet after missing out by 6 points last year. Other teams to look out for will be Chaska, Roseville, Centennial and Wayzata.
I consider the girls individual side to be the hardest of the 4 sections to choose from as this years girls field is loaded. From last year's state meet field only 7 of the top 60 runners were seniors!! We'll start with returning champion, junior Laura Hughes of Mankato West. Coming off an off year of track, she'll look to rebound and defend her title against this stacked field. Right behind her last year was senior Cassy Opitz of Eden Prairie. Despite an injury this summer, she'll be ready to go and is setting her sights on finishing out her season as team champion and individual champion. As mentioned above, one of the perennial runners is Katie Moraczewski. Coming off an injured track season Katie will be one to contend with as well. Emma Bates exploded onto the cc season with her 3rd-place finish and continued that success with a 7th/2nd place finish in the 1600/3200 at state track meet this past spring. Coming off a season where she was unknown to many, she could evolve into Minnesota's next elite runner. These 4 runners seem to be the elite four of the bunch, but sniffing on their tails are "a lot" of runners. Including Caitlin Hewes of Stillwater (2nd/5th place finish in the 1600/3200), Meghan and Sarah Heuer of Prior Lake (returning as 5th/7th returners from state meet), Kaylea Brase of Centennial (#6 returner), Laura Docherty of Cretin-Derham Hall, Michelle Volz of Lakeville North (had an injury filled junior year), Emily Meese of Minnetonka, etc... the list could go on forever. It will truly be a battle for this individual title and I wouldn't be surprised if there was someone I haven't mentioned comes along and takes first at the state meet!
Pre-season state rankings are out along with my own preseason rankings too..