St. Michael-Albertville’s cross-country team made its 2014 appearance at the State AA Meet in Northfield last weekend one to remember, bringing home some hardware in the process.
In what is already one of the most decorated seasons in the school’s history, and its best performance in Class AA, to date, the Knights continue to roll in Northfield, with the STMA Boys bringing home hardware thanks to a fourth place finish, and Rachel King leading the STMA Girls to a sixth place finish in the state.
STMA Girls
Rachel King, senior, led the Knights with a time of 14 minutes, 15 seconds in the 4,000-meter race, one of her top times of the season. King was sixth in the competition and second among team-scorers. Sisters Meghan and Bethany Hasz of Alexandria finished first and second, though the Cards didn’t make the state meet, with times of 13 minutes, 40 second and 13:44, respectively.
King was joined in the top 20 by teammates Lizzy Heil (18th) and Annalise Davis (19th), who both finished the race in under 15 minutes. Heil is just a sophomore, while Davis is only in eighth grade, meaning the future of the Knights’ girls team looks pretty bright, despite the loss of King.
King wraps up her career with her best state performance, a section championship as an individual and multiple conference championships. Since her freshman year, she’s been one of the top runners in the state outside of Alexandria. She was the lone senior scoring runner (top five) at state, and was the de-facto team leader for coach Gregg Greeno’s squad in a season that saw them sweep meets throughout the conference portion of the schedule, and dominate at the Section 5AA meet.
Rounding out the scoring for St. Michael-Albertville at state were Mia Salas, another eighth-grader, who came in 68th, and sophomore Katie Zachman, who wound up 70th in the team race.
STMA finished with 177 points, a point better than seventh-place Forest Lake and just nine points behind Marshall, which would have given them a top five finish. Wayzata took first place with 65 points, while Edina was a distant second.
STMA Boys
Senior Chase Cayo led the Knights with an all-state performance, finishing in fifth place overall and fourth place in team scoring, as the Knights took fourth place behind Stillwater High.
Wayzata made a clean sweep of the cross country meet by winning the boys’ team title, while Hopkins was second overall.
Cayon finished with a time of 15:31. About a minute behind him, a flurry of Knights complete the course, pushing STMA up in the standings. Lukay Layton, a junior, was 31st. Jake Monseth, a senior, ran one of his top races of the year to come in 38th, and fellow senior Christian Eiynck was right with him, finishing 39th. Alex Wolseth, a sophomore, rounded out the Knights’ top five with a 41st place finish.