---

The Chisago Lakes cross country teams continued their impressive seasons last week, as the boys finished in second place behind 10th ranked Centennial and the girls finished in third place at the Centennial Invite.

Luke McKenzie kept his amazing season trucking right along with another first place finish at a big meet. He completed the course in 16:17, followed by two high-quality Centennial runners.

Sophomore Andy Magnuson wasn't too far off, finishing in fourth place with a time of 16:44.

The two ran in the front of the pack for nearly the entire race, and it wasn't until towards the end that Magnuson was passed. The two broke up what would've been a perfect score by Centennial, as the Cougars had the second, third, fifth, sixth and seventh place finishers.

Quinton Lee, Carl Osterberg and Noah Rockenback all finished in the top 20, completing Chisago's varsity scoring. Lee earned a 14th place finish in 18:34, Osterberg was in 16th with a time of 19:14 and Rockenback was in 18th with a time of 19:23.

"Last week's meet was a pretty good one for us. I felt that the boys ran hard and were very competitive," Head Coach Ken Orwoll said after the event. "The times don't reflect it because of the heat and the number of corners on the course, though."

In the unique twist, the junior varsity ran the same race as the varsity squad, and Al Vrudny finished in 18:52, which would've been good enough for fourth best on CL and 15th in the varsity race.

As it stood, Vrudny finished in sixth place among junior varsity runners.

Centennial took the varsity meet with a score of 23, and Chisago Lakes was second with a 53. Holy Angels finished in third, conference foes Fridley and Spring Lake Park rounded out the top five with Christ House of Faith finishing in sixth.

Girls

The girls learned just how important every place in the race is when they took to the 4K course for the varsity race.

Abbi Forsman finished in second place in 15:25, but Orwoll figured on a different course, the result might have been different. "Abbi ran with a Centennial girl the whole race, but, being unsure of the course with its many loops and reverse loop gave the Centennial runner a chance to beat her, and she did," he said.

Katie Christy and Mary Cross finished neck-and-neck in 12th and 1th place with matching times of 17:28.

Madi Vukich finished in 19th place with a time of 18:06 and Ali Fuller rounded out the five varsity scorers with an 18:23, good enough for 22nd place.

But, the scoring didn't technically stop there. With the results, the Wildcats found themselves tied with Holy Angels for third place with 72 points. In that case, the tiebreaker went to the sixth runner for each team and Kayla Gibson was the winner with a time of 18:37 in 26th place, giving the girls third place on their own.

Centennial won the event with a 27 and Spring Lake Park finished in second with 59. Holy Angels, Fridley and CHOF finished behind CL.

"We learned how important your sixth runner is when Kayla Gibson finished ahead of the Holy Angels girl to give us the third place finish," Orwoll said proudly after the meet. "Katie, Mary and Madi are running so consistent the last few races and they did it again on Wednesday. I just can't wait to see what they can do after a little rest."

---