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Chisago Lakes’ Annika Hall saved her best race of the year for the most important one.

The freshman sensation, who’s already had a decorated running career at CL, added a fourth place finish to her trophy room in the Class AA state cross country meet on Saturday, November 2 at Les Bolstad Golf Course at the University of Minnesota.

Hall finished the challenging course in 18:25.8. 

Not only did she soundly beat her Mississippi 8 Conference foil Isabel Mahoney of Monticello — Mahoney beat Hall in the M8C championships — she was the only non-senior to place in the top five.

St. Paul Highland Park teammates Grace Lewis-Mosher and Claire Vukovics finished in the top two spots, with Lewis-Mosher separating herself with an 18:11.8, but Hall was right there with Vukovics and Fairmont’s Macy Hanson, who came in third. Those two finished with times of 18:22.3 and 18:24.3, just seconds ahead of Hall.

Senior Kaia Osmundson closed out her impressive cross country career with a 39th place finish overall, finishing the race in 19:41.9. In the team competition, Osmundson placed 20th for the ‘Cats, who had gone to the meet as a team after finishing second in Section 7AA.

The other Wildcat runners that helped Chisago Lakes finish in ninth place in the state meet were freshman Arianna Husfeldt in 106th overall, but 63 in the team comp. Fellow frosh Ava Gellerman was right behind in 108th place and 65th in team competition. Junior Lauren Kowarsch came in 116th place and 72nd among the team runners.

Boys

Jordan Stumm of North Branch and Kaiden Osmundson of Chisago Lakes were the two area boys to qualify for the state meet. The pair ran together for nearly the whole meet, with Stumm, a senior, finishing in 104th place with a time of 17:21.4 and Osmundson, a junior, coming in 107th place with a time of 17:22.2.

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