Many Wildcats break personal bests at meet

Milaca Mega Meet As has been the case recently, Chisago Lakes cross country Head Coach Ken Orwoll ran his competitors in their age group at one of the biggest Minnesota cross country meets. That usually means an incomplete score for the varsity squad, but a different problem kept the girls from registering a team score this year. Abbi Forsman continued her amazing two-year run by finishing sixth overall in the Class AAA varsity race.

She finished in 14:57, registering her first sub-15 minute time of the year. The time was just eight seconds off of the school record for Chisago Lakes. Liz Coulter finished in 83rd place and had a personal best time of 17:17. Madi Vukich and Ali Fuller also ran for the Wildcats. Allison Ives was the fifth runner for Chisago Lakes, giving them a complete team, but the timing system never detected her chip and she didn’t get a time, which meant the Wildcats registered as an incomplete team. Head Coach Ken Orwoll guessed the ‘Cats would’ve finished in 15th place if the race technology would’ve worked properly. Katie Christy, who is normally the Wildcats’ second best varsity runner, ran in the 10th grade race at the Milaca Mega Meet. She finished in fifth place overall a personal best time of 16:19, and shaved 20 seconds off of her best time from last year. Boys Without many youngsters, the boys half of the team ran their full varsity squad in the Class AAA event and finished seventh overall. Junior Andy Magnuson led ‘Cats with a time of 16:29, six seconds off of his personal best. The time earned him a seventh place finish in the meet. Sophomore Quinton Lee ran the 5K race in 17:16, a personal best. He finished in 28th place in the prestigious meet. Juniors Carl Osterberg and Carson Velaski were the next Wildcats over the finish line. Osterberg finished in 17:24 in 35th place and Velaski came in 39th place with a time of 17:27. Senior Noah Rockenback and sophomore Zach West came in close to each other at the 17:38 mark. Rockenback finished in that time in 46th place and West finished in 49th place with a 17:39. Osterberg, West and Velaski all had personal bests in the race.

“The boys all had outstanding races. I was pretty surprised because we had a pretty hard week of practice,” Orwoll explained. “I double checked our records and this is the first year we have had six varsity runners under 18 minutes ever. We have had five and four a couple of times but never six.” Grand Forks (N.D) won meet with 91 points and Orono was just behind them with 93 points. The Wildcats finished with 155 points and were one of only seven teams to finish with under 200 points.