Photo by Sam Thiel Marshall’s Bellamy Sukalski crosses the finish line during their home invite on Thursday at Independence Park. Both the Marshall boys and girls cross country teams took first place.

MARSHALL — Only a few days into their season, the Marshall boys and girls cross country teams were put to the test against a pair of Big South Conference opponents in their first meet of the year. With a maximum of three teams allowed to compete in each meet this fall due to the new COVID-19 regulations for the sport, the Tigers were able to start their season in strong fashion, with both the boys and girls programs taking first-place finishes at their home invite Thursday at Independence Park.

Girls

On the girls side, Marshall recorded a team score of 15 while Redwood Valley took second with a score of 44. Windom Area recorded an incomplete team score.

Marshall girls coach Marie Sample said she was pleased with their overall performance, but added they need to work on their pack running throughout the course.

“I thought our team ran really well and aggressive. We didn’t go out as a pack, I was hoping we would stay in a pack a little bit longer, but they were kind of vying for spots already amongst each other and that’s okay because we have a competitive group right now and there’s going to be some of that going on, but we’re definitely going to need to learn to pack run, especially if we get a chance to maybe be in a meet with someone that’s really going to work hard on them,” coach Sample said. “The conditions weren’t really good for fast times and also generally we have two and a half weeks, sometimes even three weeks, before our first meet and we’ve really only been officially practicing together for eight days now. I was really happy overall with how they handled it.”

The Tigers took six of the top eight spots, led by Bellamy Sukalski, who earned her first career individual victory with a time of 20:57.7. Taleigha Bigler took third with a time of 21:24.3, followed by Miracle Tucker (21.55.8), Allyson Sample (21:57.3) and Gracelyn Foster (22:32.8) in fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively.

Anna DeGroot placed eighth with a time of 23:09.9 while Beret Pederson took 15th with a time of 25:16.9 and Jersey Leysen finished in 16th with a time of 25:21.2 to round out the times for Marshall.

Coach Sample said up-and-down the lineup, everybody was able to show improvements from the year before or set the tone in their first races at the varsity level.

“I thought they went out and competed well. Bellamy at the end sat tight behind that Windom girl for a while and she’s a veteran runner, this is year five for her. She ran smart and gave herself an opportunity to pull out that individual victory. Everybody else also ran well; Taleigha threw caution to the wind and just went out there and ran with the big dogs. She’s been practicing well and practicing hard with us this summer, so mentally and physically she was ready to go and she showed that,” coach Sample said. “The girls behind her, Gracelyn ran two minutes faster than she did last year on this course, so we’re super happy with that. I think Allyson was faster than last year, Miracle was faster than last year, so everybody improved even though the conditions were really humid and a bit warm.”

Boys

On the boys side, Marshall recorded a team score of 33, edging out Redwood Valley, who placed second with a score of 35 points. Windom Area took third with a score of 59.

Marshall boys coach Brian Leibfried said he was happy with how things went for their group in their first race of the season and they were fortunate to have a couple of things go their way in order to keep the Cardinals behind them.

“We’re super happy with how things went just overall with everything. I thought our boys did a great job; when you have three teams in a meet, it’s going to come down to individual battles and usually it’s separated by just a couple of points and we saw that,” coach Leibfried said. “We edged Redwood by just a couple of points and it was everybody just doing their job and try to finish strong and every place matters. We had a couple of things go our way, fortunately for us and we were able to come out with a first-place finish.”

Marshall claimed five of the top 10 spots, including two inside the top 5. Zach Leibfried was the top runner for the Tigers, taking third with a time of 18:19.0, followed by Owen Holmberg in fourth at 18:22.2. Josh Leibfried took seventh with a time of 18:46.8 while Landon Wherry took ninth (19:06.3) and Brett Regnier took 10th with a time of 19:36.3. Sam Deutz took 12th (19:51.2), Ashton Schnaser took 14th (20:32.2) and Daniel Olin took 15th (20:35.0) to round out the times for Marshall.

Coach Leibfried added their key throughout the meet was running together as a group and they’re hoping once training shows more, the times will continue to get lower.

“I think we were able to kind of see each other and ran together,” coach Leibfried said. “With it being the first meet, there’s some rust to work off now for everybody and I think when the training starts to come through, those times are going to drop, but the effort was definitely super.”

Up next

Marshall will compete next on Sept. 4 against Luverne and Windom Area at 4:30 p.m. in Luverne.