With their strong third place finish at the Section 1AA meet after the same top three finish at the recent Big Nine Conference meet, the Owatonna High School girls cross country team is the Cash Wise Foods of Owatonna and Waseca Team of the Week. Cash Wise Foods will donate a $50 gift card to a charity in the district of the winning team each week during the 2019-2020 school year.

As a little icing on the cake, the OHS girls and boys cross country teams each had a runner at the state meet Saturday, November 2 at St. Olaf College in Northfield for the first time in a few years.

Owatonna eighth-grader Carsyn Brady made her state meet debut with a time of 19:42 and a 102nd place finish out of 176 runners. OHS sophomore Preston Meier turned in a time of 16:50 in the Class AA boys race for a 90th place finish. Hear pre-race interviews with Carsyn and Preston.

OHS girls cross country coach Dan Leer said Brady turned in a nice race, "It was an exciting day. The atmosphere at the state meet is like no other. You're there with the best runners in the state. She did really well as an eighth-grader. The experience at state can be overwhelming."

Regarding the strong team efforts at conference and section, Leer said, "Very pleased with our race at sections. Going into it I was thinking I would happy with a fifth place finish."

Boys coach Dave Chatelaine said Meier had a good showing, "It went really considering this was his first time at the state meet. He's a sophomore and it's really, really tough for underclassmen like a sophomore or freshman to come into that big field of 176 runners, most of them which are the top runners in the state."

The Huskies will graduate several seniors off the boys and girls teams, but each section varsity team will return all of its runners in 2020. Seniors this season include Amelia VandeZande, Camryn Bartz, Chloe Schmidt, Grace Randall, Kaitlin Paulson, Lisabet Hanson, Liv Larson, Mikayla Dinse, Rachel Benson, Ethan Stockwell, Fanta Omot, Joey Brueggemeier, Kyle Christenson, Miles Kuhn, Nick Steel, and Phil Koslosky.

 

 

 

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