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"What a great day for North Branch cross country!" a proud and excited Viking head coach Brian Hasleiet said after the NSC Cross Country Meet. Hasleiet's teams competed at the New Hope's Bassett Creek Park in the conference championships October 16.

The NB girls, after finishing second to St. Francis in 2006, finished well ahead of the Saints this year to win the event. The young Viking boys finished a very respectable fourth, behind Fridley, Irondale and St. Louis Park.

"Our girls varsity had a truly spectacular day," Hasleiet commented. "We talked before the race a little bit and set a team goal to have all seven of our girls finish in the top 15 so we could have all of them get All-Conference. They went out there and did just that. Our 7th girl finished 14th out of 69 runners, which is just a great performance.

"This group works so hard every single day. They are very focused and they push each other so much in both meets and practice. I'm so happy for them because they deserve to have as much success as they're having this year," the coach continued.

"The boys also had a good day, led by Mike Heidelberger and Ryan Norman, once again. We graduated five seniors off of our team that won the conference and went to state last year. These guys were able to finish fourth out of 10 teams in a very tough North Suburban Conference. That's a very good finish especially since none of these guys are seniors and all of them will be back next year."

In addition to the successes of the varsity teams, the future of Viking cross country looks to be in good shape, too. The girls JV finished in second place, the girls seventh and eighth graders finished first and the seventh and eighth grade boys for finished in third place. "That means all of our teams finished in the top four out of 10 teams in the conference. Like I said, what a great day for North Branch cross country," Hasleiet added.

Mike Heidelberger, Ryan Norman, Ali Zimmerman, Haley Hasleiet, Miranda Charley, Dani Privratsky, Shayna Gray, Briana Berthiaume and Kendra Norman all finished in the top 15 in the varsity races and were named to the NSC All-Conference teams.

"Every single one of our athletes went out there today and gave 100 percent total effort. Because of that, all of our hard work this season, and a lot of mental focus, we came away with some great results today," Hasleiet concluded.

NSC Conference Cross Country

NB Individual Results

Girls Place Name, Grade Time 5 Ali Zimmerman, 9 16:42.2 6 Haley Hasleiet, 10 16:46.4 7 Miranda Charley, 10 16:47.4 9 Dani Privratsky, 11 16:58.4 10 Shayna Gray, 9 17:02.4 12 BrianaBerthiaume,11 17:07.1 14 Kendra Norman, 9 17:15.2

Boys

5 Mike Heidelberger, 11 17:20.3 6 Ryan Norman, 11 17:32.3 32 Nick Salo, 11 18:52.8 33 Joe Klun,10 18:53.1 40 Colin Charpentier, 9 19:10.0 50 Body Suparat, 11 19:38.0 63 Zach Good, 11 20:08.5

The varsity teams will continue their season by competing at the Section 7AA Meet at Elk River October 25. Races will start at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.

NSC Cross Country Meet

October 16, 2007

Bassett Creek Park

New Hope

GIRLS

1 North Branch 37

2 St. Francis 88

3 Irondale 101

4 Totino-Grace 109

5 Robbinsdale Cooper 109

6 Benilde-St Margaret's 120

7 St. Louis Park 195

8 Spring Lake Park 205

9 Chisago Lakes 246

10 Fridley 272

BOYS

1 Fridley 73

2 Irondale 83

3 St. Louis Park 113

4 North Branch 116

5 St. Francis 123

6 Robbinsdale Cooper 129

7 Benilde-St Margaret's130

8 Totino-Grace 139

9 Chisago Lakes 221

10 Spring Lake Park 242

Both the Wildcat teams finished ninth of 10 at the NSC Cross Country Meet. Chelsea Johnson and Tom McGurk led their teams.

"Not a good meet for us," said Chisago Lakes head coach Ken Orwoll. "Our top runners, in both the boys and girls race had a tough day. We were hoping Danielle (Vitali) had recovered enough from her injuries to repeat as an All-Conference finisher, but that wasn't the case. She ran with a lot of pain. I give her a lot of credit for the effort. It also was unfortunate for Nathan (Gieske) that it wasn't his race. He is one of our most dedicated and hardest working on the team."

Chisago Lakes Results

NSC Cross Country Meet

Girls

Place Name Grade Time 38 Chelsea Johnson, 10 18:08.3 41 Makayla Grote, 11 18:13.1 45 Danielle Vitali, 10 18:22.9 58 Becca Schmidt, 11 19:19.8 64 Camille Uher, 9 20:04.9 66 Laura Eastman, 10 20:34.6 Boys

29 Tom McGurk, 12 18:48.4 39 Nathan Gieske, 12 19:06.3 45 Brad Johnson, 10 19:22.6 47 Max Molina, 12 19:28.0 61 Alex Walter, 10 20:04.3 64 Caleb Gieske, 9 20:20.2 68 Riley Myers, 10 20:45.8

"On a positive note, Tom McGurk had an outstanding race. He ran a smart race and finished strong to earn All-Conference Honorable Mention. It was great to see the senior come though in his last conference meet," Orwoll added.

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