Cross-Country: Wingers recover from tough week

The last week was tough for Red Wing as the Wingers ran three meets in seven days but Saturday at the Alexandria Lions Meet of Champions at Arrowwood Resort in Alexandria, the team recovered with a nice performance leading into the final weeks of the season.

The Red Wing boys team finished 15th out of 22 teams and the girls took 17th of 21, despite competing without any runner younger than a sophomore. Eighth and ninth-graders raced in the junior high race. Red Wing eighth-grader Elle Bryant won the girls junior high race and ninth-grader George Nemanich took second in the boys junior high race for the Wingers.

“I was very happy with our team’s performance today,” Red Wing head coach Jesse Nelson said. “It was a night and day difference between Tuesday and today. We ran some junior high kids that normally run varsity in the junior high division so that affected our team score a bit.”

Sixth-ranked (2A) Chanhassen won the girls’ race and top-ranked (2A) Stillwater took first in the boys’ competition.

Junior Aiden Winn led the Wingers in the boys’ race, placing 15th in 16 minutes, 40.3 seconds, in a race that included three of the top five ranked runners in Class 2A. He finished 18 seconds behind the fifth-ranked runner in Class 1A, St. Cloud Cathedral’s Nick Golebiowski.

“Aiden Winn had a breakout type performance today,” Nelson said.

Red Wing sophomore Marcus Warrington came in 66th in a time of 17:31.5, junior Joe Partington ran in 17:41.1, sophomore Meyer Beckner finished 86th in 17:43.7 and junior Darrick Jackson took 89th in 17:51.8.

In the girls’ race, junior Lindsay Scribner finished 34th overall to lead the Wingers in 15:54.2. Senior Kelsee Anderson was 82nd in 16:51.5, sophomore Adrienne Hicks took 102nd in 17:22.7, junior Hailee Johnson finished 107th in 17:37 and junior Emily Dech came in 128th in 18:51.8.

“I feel real good about our team and our prospects going into the Missota meet in a week and a half,” Nelson said.

Red Wing’s next meet is the Missota Conference Championships, taking place Oct. 16 at New Prague Golf Course.

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