WILLMAR - The Willmar cross country teams turned in some solid performances Saturday at their home invitational, with the girls team placing second and the boys third.
Kayla Rudie led the Willmar girls, running in the chase pack and finishing right with winning team Marshall’s second and third runners. She finished third overall in 19:07.61.
She was soon followed by teammates Jessa Hanson and Sophie Schmitz, who were fifth and seventh overall in 19:13 and 19:25.
Claire Boersma of Marshall won the race by 33 seconds in 18:34.36. The Cardinals ended up with 42 points, easily good enough for second but higher than Marshall’s winning score of 25.
The Willmar girls entered the meet ranked fourth in Minnesota Class AA, while Marshall was ranked second.
“The Marshall girls are for real,” said Willmar head coach Jerry Popp. “We ran well, but they were too much for us today. We’ve got to go back to the drawing board.”
The boys team ran well but fell a bit short of the elite competition in the race. They finished third with 93 points behind top-ranked Hopkins and Wayzata.
“The guys ran well,” said Popp. “The top two teams in the state were at this meet, and we went out there and competed.”
Nadir Yusuf led the Cardinals with an eighth-place finish in 16:30.3. Mohamed Noor and Ian Thompson also cracked the top 20 and the 17-minute barrier on the hilly course in 16:48 and 16:59, respectively.
Wayzata’s Jaret Carpenter took first for the boys in 15:36.30.
Willmar runs next at Alexandria on Saturday, with races scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m.
See video from the meet here:
http://www.wctrib.com/sports/prep/3853452-video-wilmar-cardinals-cross-c...
Saturday’s results
Willmar invitational
BOYS
Team Scoring
(1) Hopkins 20 (2) Wayzata 38 (3) Willmar 93 (4) Elk River 122 (5) Moorhead 190 (6) Fargo North 198 (7) St. Cloud Tech 205 (8) Jordan 209 (9) Hutchinson 215 (10) Pipestone 242 (11) New London-Spicer 265
Individual
TOP TEN - (1) Jaret Carpenter, Wayzata, 15:36.3 (2) Owen Hoeft, Hopkins, 15:46.5 (3) Seth Eliason, Hopkins, 16:20.5 (4) Jack Henschel, Hopkins, 16:23.5 (5) Hunter Staack, Hopkins, 16:23.7 (6) Samuel Branson, Hopkins, 16:27.7 (7) Khalid Hussein, Wayzata, 16:27.9 (8) Nadir Yusuf, Willmar, 16:30.3 (9) Andrew Millan, Wayzata, 16:35.0 (10) Nick Shaleen, Wayzata, 16:36.0
WILLMAR - (8) N. Yusuf 16:30.3 (13) Mohamed Noor 16:48.0 (16) Ian Thompson 16:59.3 (25) Hudeife Mire 17:33.8 (31) Cael Carlson 17:54.7
NEW LONDON-SPICER - (45) Ben Lange 18:40.7 (46) Ander Arnold 18:49.5 (50) Ty Bisek 18:56.3 (58) Max Maher 19:13.8 (66) Tyson Prentice 19:43.8
GIRLS
Team Scoring
(1) Marshall 25 (2) Willmar 42 (3) Hopkins 75 (4) St. Cloud Tech 131 (5) Moorhead 133 (6) Elk River 183 (7) Hutchinson 196 (8) Jamestown 214 (9) Pipestone 252 (10) Jordan 263 (11) New London-Spicer 299
Individual
TOP TEN - (1) Claire Boersma, Marshall, 18:34.3 (2) Natalee Sample, Marshall, 19:07.4 (3) Kayla Rudie, Willmar, 19:07.6 (4) Jackie Turner, Marshall, 19:07.6 (5) Jessa Hanson, Willmar, 19:13.9 (6) Renae Anderson, Hopkins, 19:18.1 (7) Sophie Schmitz, Willmar, 19:25.8 (8) Kaia Sueker, Marshall, 19:37.1 (9) Nichole Sample, Marshall, 19:40.1 (10) Leah Hansen, Willmar, 19:59.3
WILLMAR - (3) K. Rudie 19:07.6 (5) J. Hanson 19:13.9 (7) S. Schmitz 19:25.8 (10) L. Hansen 19:59.3 (17) Courtney Hanson 20:35.6
NEW LONDON-SPICER - (48) Maddie Bisek 22:03.8 (55) Tayler Harrier 22:44.2 (58) Danni Jamison 22:49.6 (65) Olivia Vincent 24:16.7 (73) Rheanna Lobbins, 26:50.7
