STATE MEET

First off, I need to correct what I said yesterday about my friend Eric’s daughter, Sal. This is Sal’s 4th trip to the state meet. She finished 100th, 50th and 88th the last 3 years. I should have remember that because after finishing 50th, Eric and I predicted 25th last year.

There were 4 races today; boys and girls AA (big school) followed by boys and girls A. I just recap them in order.

Boy AA
From 2002 to 2004, Garrett Heath had a stretch where he was undefeated in cross country running, cross country skiing and track. Garrett is at Stanford now, but he has a younger brother, Elliott who’s a junior. While Elliott wasn’t undefeated this year, he won the “big one” by just over 2 seconds with a time of 15:32. Garrett has the course record of 15:11.

Girls AA
Speaking of course records, a gal named Carrie Tollefson owns the 11-year old girls record of 14:09. That was broken today by senior Elizabeth Yetzer with a time of 13:59. Two years ago Yetzer broke Tollefson’s 1600 mark and last year she broke Shannon Bergstedt’s (who’s now at Stanford) 3200 mark. I don’t know about other states, but Minnesota allows kids to run varsity from the 7th grade on. Yetzer has now place first twice, second, third, fourth and fifth at state.

At this meet her last 800 meters was amazing. She was with another gal at 3200 meters and went on to win by 18 seconds – that’s like covering the last 800 meters while the second place gal only covered 700 meters. Wow.

One final thing on Yetzer, she’ll be heading to the University of Minnesota next year.

I’m happy to report that Sal ran an awesome race. We saw her at about 800 meters and she was probably in about 50th place. Then the runners do a loop in the woods and come back by us again around 1800 meters. During this time Eric and I said she needed to really move up and be in good position by the time we saw her again. Well, she did just that as she ran passed in 9th place. Eric and I ran to another spot and during that time it looked like she made it all the way to 7th place. A different loop through the woods and we see Sal in about the same position with 400 meters to go. She’s looking good but within 15 seconds of her are about 20 other girls. We sprint to the finish in time to see Yetzer’s sub-14 and we start counting places. Sal ends up coming in 10th with a 14:45!!! What a great way to end her high school cross country career!?

Boys A
In this race report I mention the winner being a 17-year old kid (Mike Torchia) who’s won the race 5 years in a row. He also happens to be the defending class A champ. Now he’s fastest boy in the state as his 15:28 was the fastest time of the day. He also had the largest margin of victory, 39 seconds, on the day. Torchia is looking at Minnesota, Dartmouth and Princeton for colleges.

Girls A
Oh, that record that Yetzer set, it lasted about 3 hours as senior Bria Wetsch (who’ll run for Oregon next year) turned in a 13:54 to win her race by 21 seconds. Wetsch was the only girl able to defeat Yetzer during the season. A week later Yetzer avenged that loss. I guess the “rubber match” will have to be at Footlocker.

As for my own running, there were 2 hours between the AA and A meets, so I managed to get in 8 miles. That gave me 53 for the week. I’m feeling good and have been reminding myself to be patient.