Boys finish third at Milaca Mega Meet

The Milaca Mega Meet always provides teams with a measuring stick as to how they are doing on the year. This year, the Chisago Lakes Wildcats are right on track to their end of the year goals on the boys side. Like a broken record, Andy Magnuson was the lead dog in the pack for the Chisago Lakes. The senior finished the Class AAA race in a personal best 16:14, putting him in fourth place in the class of 140 runners.

“Andy ran a smart race. It was a fast start, but then he held back and ran his race catching all but three runners in the race to finish fourth,” Head Coach Ken Orwoll noted after the meet. In second and third for the Wildcats was junior Zac West and senior Carson Velaski. The two have been neck-and-neck all year, and the Mega Meet was no different. West finished in 17th place with a time of 17:10.3 and Velaski was in 18th place with a time of 17:10.6, leaving just a sliver between the two. Velaski’s time was a personal best for him. “Zac West and Carson Velaski work very well together, running very good times for only their third meet [together].”

Quinton Lee was Chisago’s fourth finisher, and the junior cracked the top 30. He finished in 29th place with a time of 17:34. “This meet was a real good test for the team,” Orwoll said. “We are running well, but this big meet shows that we still have work to do.” As he has in the past at the Mega Meet, Orwoll stuck to running his competitors in their age bracket, so Nick Bartz, typically a varsity runner, competed in the sophomore race. He finished 12th in that race, finishing in a personal best time of 17:39. Simon Eddy filled Bartz’s spot on the varsity lineup and finished in 44th place, helping the ‘Cats to a third place finish with 111 points. Hutchinson won the Class AAA event with 71 points. They had the top two overall finishers in the event. Chaska finished second with 106 points. Hutch is ranked fifth in the state and Chaska, up until this week, was ranked 10th in the state. “It was a pretty good day for us,” Orwoll said. “The fast course and great competition helped many of our runners have personal bests.”

Girls
Because of the youth on the girl’s squad, they had an incomplete varsity roster. Some of their top runners are middle schoolers, and Orwoll runs the kids in their age bracket at the Mega Meet. Sarah Greene was the top finisher for the Chisago Lakes varsity squad. She finished in 16th place in her first ever Mega Meet with a time of 15:35. It was her first time breaking 16 minutes as she clocked a personal best on the quick course. “It is so fun to watch her run,” Orwoll explained. “She runs so smooth, but can really go after runner in front of her.”

Junior Katie Christy finished in 17:03 in 63rd place and fellow junior Natalie Sandstrom was just behind her in 65th place with a time of 17:05. Junior Kathryn Sistrunk was the fourth CL varsity runner, finishing in 18:03 in 98th place. The Class AAA girls race featured 144 total runners. Sandstrom and Sistrunk both had and personal bests. Rebekah Olinger and Ellie Zemlin, two girls who are usually in the varsity lineup, had a fantastic day in the eighth grade race. Olinger won the 209-runner meet and Zemlin finished in ninth in the meet.