Cross Country: LARPH Boys Top Cotter 45 to 46 at PEM Invite

At last year’s Section 1A cross country meet, Winona-Cotter boy’s downed LARPH 75 to 84 for the team title.  Both squads made state, but the Ramblers prevented LARPH from repeating as section champs after 2021’s team title.  Said teams will probably again figure in the 1A team race. 

The PEM Jodi Rahman Invite might have been a prelude.  Matt Kingsbury’s group notched their fifth team title of the year, but maybe their most prominent.  They nipped Cotter by the slimmest of margins, 45 to 46.  Pine Island (113) took a distant third.  LARPH’s scoring five finished fifth (Ryan Prinsen > 17:20.9), sixth (Wyatt Kreidermacher > 17:27), seventh (Aaron Ploetz > 17:30.9), 13th (Brennan Kunst > 18:04.8), and 14th (Isaac Rasmussen > 18:06).  The Ramblers five finished second (Erik Semling > 16:34.2), fourth (John Fritts > 17:09.4), ninth (Kellen Groth > 17:42.6), 11th (Ryan Littlefield > 17:50.2), and 20th (Logan Granseth > 18:14.6).  Kreidermacher’s addition to LARPH’s team made a difference, giving them a sixth-place runner versus an 18th place (Tyler Betthauser > 18:11.9).  Kreidermacher was not out last year.  All told, LARPH had seven in the top 25, as Treyton Heyland (18:35) took 22nd. 

W-K’s Cole Arens (16:15.7) took the individual title by 0:29 over Cotter’s Semling.  LFC got two in the top 25.  Isaac Snyder (17:42.4) took 8th and Riley Grant (18:53.1) 24th.  The Burros (170) took sixth (of 10 teams).  Fourth place Stewartville (132), fifth place PEM (167), seventh place St. Charles (171), W-K, D-E, and Chatfield also competed.  No Gopher finished in the top 30 of 69 total runners.  On the girls side, the team race was also decided by one point.  Cotter (68) nipped double-A Stewartville (69) with LFC (86) taking third over Pine Island (90).  Chatfield (156) took a distant fifth.  LARPH took 8th and Kingsland 9th (of 11 complete).  Cotter’s Sonja Semling (19:13.7) topped St. Charles’ Mya Slavin (19:48.1), Chatfield’s Lexi Kivimagi (19:53.9), and LFC’s Autumn Rakosnik (20:14.8) for the individual title.  Gopher Charlotte Oeltjen (7th > 20:49.7) and Burro Lillyan Kiehne (10th > 21:20.5) also made the top 10.  Seventh-grader Eliza Cullen of LFC (21:28.5) was the only other Journal-covered runner to make the top 25 (of 72 total runners).  Kingsland’s Kylie Meyer (22:39.4) took 26th.  The 5,000-meter races were run at Piper Hills Golf Course in Plainview.