Surging ahead of the pack
Top-ranked Tigers finish as meet runners-up in stacked field in North Mankato
NORTH MANKATO — The Mankato East Invitational boys cross country meet on Wednesday featured four of the top 12 teams in Class AA and another ranked team from Class AAA. In the deep field of teams with state-meet aspirations, Marshall stood above the rest. The top-ranked Tigers finished as the top Class 2A team at the meet and tied Class 3A No. 8 Bloomington Jefferson for first place, falling shy only on the tiebreaker.
Marshall and Bloomington Jefferson each finished with 51 points on the day, beating out third-place Mankato East’s 56 and fourth-place Mankato West’s 116. With the scores all knotted up, it came down to the No. 6 runner. Bloomington Jefferson’s Philip Lueth had just enough gas to give his team the win, crossing the line at 17:46.4 to take 30th place while Marshall’s Jack Gunn took 33rd at 17:48.7.
Sam Deutz went into the meet as the No. 6 individual in Class AA and showed why, crossing the line at 15:85.5 to finish as the meet runner-up. Only Mankato East senior Audi Thom’s time of 15:52.4 was faster than the junior Tiger’s.
Bloomington Jefferson’s Patrick and Alexander Alstatt took fifth and sixth place at 16:21.9 and 16:23.0, but the pair of top finishers didn’t give Bloomington much breathing room as Kohen Holcomb took eighth place at 16:37.3, beating out Bloomington’s Logan Young by one second.
Landon Marthaler and Keagen Anderson also finished near the top of the 85-runner meet, Marthaler taking 11th place at 16:43.7 and Anderson taking 12th at 16:44.6.
Bloomington’s final scorers were hot on Marshall’s tail; Miles Bassett placed 15th while Owen Woods took 16th at 16:54.7 and 16:56.9 respectively. Ethan Bly rounded out the Tiger scorers in 18th place at 17:03.1.
Marshall will next compete on Tuesday when it travels to Minn-Iowa Golf Course in Elmore for the Big South Conference Championship. The meet is scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m.