It was a bizarre race for the Perham girls cross country team in Little Falls at the Lucky Lindy event on Thursday.
When the race kicked off, there was a slight overcast over the Little Falls Golf Course. But no more than five minutes later, the rain started coming down. With the sky filled with lightning, the Perham girls ran to a fourth-place finish.
“The varsity girls had a great day,” Perham head coach Jeff Morris said. “They finished fourth overall by edging out Staples in the tiebreaker. Alexandria took home the team title.”
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Eighth-grader Gracie Morris led all Perham girls with a time of 20:17.5. Her time was good enough for 12th place in a field with 135 runners. Junior Quincy Anderson wasn’t too far behind in 16th with her time of 20:34.3.
“Leading the way was the one-two punch of Gracie and Quincy,” Morris said. “Both of these girls did a fantastic job establishing our team at the front of the pack. It sets the tone for the rest of the team.”
Leelou Novotny (21:15.5), Liz Birkeland (21:29.5) and Kaia Starlz rounded out the top five for the Yellowjackets, putting them in a tie with Staples-Motley. It came down to the sixth-fastest runners for each team.
Lauryn Rustad had a gutsy race,” Morris said. “Her finish broke the tie with our team and Staples.”
Rustad was just two seconds behind Stalz with a time of 22:26.6. Staples-Motley’s Addisyn Cichos was clocked in her team’s sixth-fasted time in 24:12.5.
Boys take sixth
Despite missing one of its top three runners, the Yellowjacket boys ran to a sixth-place finish behind another Impressive performance from senior Jakob McCleary.
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“We were down one of our top three due to illness but still competed well in a fantastic field with great competition,” Morris said. “The boys were sixth overall, just behind Staples. Bemidji took home the team title.”
While the girls had to run through the rain, the thunderstorms subsided for the boys race. McCleary ran through the overcast fairways to a time of 16:28.0. The next fastest runner was St. Cloud Cathedral’s 17:04.8.
Sophomore Caden Doll finished in 18:20.9, with junior Micah Thompson two seconds behind. Carter Flatau 18:43.8 and Dylan Guck 18:59.3 were the final two points scorers for the Yellowjackets.
