Lake City's Dammann finishes 15th at Swain Invite

The Lake City girls cross-country team finished 17th in the Class A meet at the Swain Invitational Saturday in Duluth.

Freshman Hannah Alitz led Lake City with a 58th-place finish in 17 minutes, 36.3 seconds on the 4-kilometer course. Junior Alexis Befort took 66th in 17:48, freshman Lydia Taylor finished 97th in 18:33.1, junior Taylor Siewart finished 113th in 18:59.6 and eight-grader Madi Dwelle took 119th in 19:12.4. Freshman Becca Goertzen finished in 19:44.3.

Dammann takes 15th

Tigers junior Carston Dammann finished 15th overall at the meet, which featured some of the top runners in the state. Dammann finished the 5-kilometer race in 17:00.8 to lead Lake City, which fielded an incomplete varsity team.

Tigers head coach Howard Cook called the field loaded with top runners and the race featured at least 12 runners who were in the state rankings or were rated at one time.

“This is the first time he’s had this type of competition,” Cook said of Dammann.

Chris Breuer finished 137th in 19:31.8 and junior Jordan Hyland placed 187th in 20:55.5.

“We didn’t run a complete varsity because we wanted our younger boys to run in the (junior varsity) race,” Cook said.

One of those younger runners, freshman Sergey Duchelle, placed in the top 10 in the junior varsity race, Cook said.

Many of the runners had personal bests on the day, he added.

Lake City competes Oct. 11 at Austin at River Oaks Golf Course before its conference meet Oct. 19 at Pine Creek Golf Course in La Crescent.

Tags: lake city, sports, prep, cross-country