Brian Tschetter

Southwest Christian/Edgerton participated in the Section 3A Cross-Country Meet held on Thursday, October 28. Lac qui Parle Valley/Dawson Boyd was the host team as the meet took place at the Madison Golf Course. You never know what kind of weather you will have this time of the year. Weather the week heading into the race was less than spectacular. Temps for Thursday did rise to the mid 50s which is quite ideal for running. The hiccup was the wind factor. A strong wind from the north greeted runners as they covered the 3.12 mile course. Twenty-two teams took part in the meet, 20 of which had full boys’ teams and 21 had full girls’ teams. Our section extends from the bottom southwest corner of the state all the way up to Lac qui Parle Valley, to Montevideo and over to Redwood Valley in the northeast. To the east, the section extends to Mt. Lake, Springfield–Cedar Mountain, BOLD, and down to Heron Lake – Okabena, Jackson Country Central, Adrian, and all teams in between.

The meet started with the boys’ 5000 meter race which had 133 runners. SWC/E finishers were: 27th – Mason Hamm (20:22), 63rd – Ethan Sas (19:32), 73rd – Gabe Vis (19:56 career best), 110th – Jordan Bloemendaal (22:09 career best), 119th – Jacob Masselink (22:49 career best), 122nd – Eli Van Iperen (23:27 career best), 130th – Devin Bloemendaal (24:47). These were great times for the boys. We ran this same course earlier in the season and 6 of the 7 ran quicker times. As you can see in the results, 4 of the 7 ran career-best times. This was an all-around great effort by the squad. The boys were great to work with all year. They brought a lot of fun and energy to the team. We only had one senior, Devin, so the majority of the team will be back. We thank Devin for his 3 years of running with the team.

Winning the race was Camden Janiszeski of Luverne with a time of 16:40 with his brother, Owen (16:47), finishing second. LqPV/DB took the team title with 75. Also advancing to the state meet as a team will be runner-up Luverne who tallied 81. Canby – Minneota was third with 93. Fourth through tenth was: 4th – Redwood Valley (127), 5th – Jackson County Central (140), 6th – Windom Area (141), 7th – Mt. Lake Area – Comfrey (186), 8th – Springfield/Cedar Mountain (247), 9th – Pipestone Area (261), 10th – Murray County Central/Fulda (281). Last year, the SWC/E boys finished 15th with 418 points. Well, they placed 14th with less points – this year 380. This is the best team finish the boys have had in Coach Tschetter’s tenure (2010).

The girls’ varsity 5000 meter race had 128 runners. Eagle finishers were: 37th – Kierra Binford (22:18 career best), 43rd – Maddie Fick (22:30), 55th – Shaylee Van Essen (23:00), 74th – Oli-via Muyskens (23:58 career best), 94th – Kathryn Prins (24:43),112th – Alexia Vander Pol (25:47 season best), 114th – Kylee Brands (26:01 career best). Also, on the roster as an alternate was Ellie Decker. One alternate was used as one of our top runners, Kinsie Nelson, was sick.

This was a great meet by the girls. Three career bests and one season best in those results and the other 3 were all within 20 seconds of career bests. All 7 of them ran quicker times than when they ran the course at a meet earlier in the year. So you can see the girls really stepped up for the section meet. That was a great way to cap off the year for the team. The girls had a great year together and were a super great group to work with. They worked hard and made improvements as the year went on and had a great time together. The team will for the most part stay completely intact as the only senior was Braelyn Kracht. We thank Braelyn for her four years running with the team.