Cross-country: Red Wing boys take third at Xtreme meet

Red Wing cross-country head coach Jesse Nelson has said the goal is to have a minute gap between the team’s top runner and its fifth and in the first meet of the season the Wingers accomplished that.

Red Wing finished third with 87 points Thursday at the River Falls Xtreme meet with Aiden Winn leading the team with a fifth-place finish. Winn finished the 5-kilometer course in 19 minutes, 49 seconds. Marcus Warrington placed eighth with a time of 20 minutes, Joe Partington took 13 in 20:34, Ryan Schnaith finished 28th in 21:35 and Meyer Beckner finished 33rd in 21:44.

Times at the meet tend to be slower because the nature of the course, which includes a creek and fallen trees, but in comparison to last season the Wingers posted better times than last year.

Winn placed 25th last season at the meet and this year Red Wing had its top five runners in the top 28.

“Five guys within 50 seconds, that’s what it’s going to take for us to be successful this year,” Nelson said.

Forest Lake won the meet and River Falls placed second. The Wingers finished six points behind River Falls.

Girls place 7th

Red Wing put two runners in the top 10 and finished seventh overall.

Kelsee Anderson led the team with an eighth-place finish and a time of 23:17 and Lindsay Scribner finished 10th in 23:30.

Elise Leise finished 28th in 25:23, Hailee Johnson took 59th in 26:42 and Adrienne Hicks finished 60th in 26:42.

Forest Lake won the meet with 85 points. The Wingers scored 167 points.

The Wingers travel to Wabasha Monday for the Wabasha-Kellogg Invitational and Nelson said the meet will serve as a better gauge of where the team stands.

“I think we’re ahead of where we were last year with the boys and girls program,” Nelson said.

Tags: red wing, cross-country, sports, prep