Farmington's
Justin Hyytinen, enjoying a sterling sophomore season, earned a berth in the
state boys' cross country meet with a third-place finish at the Section 1AA
meet on Thursday, Oct. 25 at Brooktree Golf Club in Owatonna. Hyytinen, who is also a highly-regarded
hockey player, ran the 5K course in 16:18.8. The speedy FHS tenth-grader led the Tigers to a surprising
sixth-place finish in the 16-team meet in cold and windy conditions.
Coach Lisa
Lippold said, "It was so exciting to see Justin place third overall and
earn a state berth and it was a great sectional meet for our entire team. When we arrived at the course for the
meet, we talked about how they could let the weather affect them or not and it
was nice to see them not let it affect how they ran at all."
Hyytinen,
who had Farmington's fastest time in each of their meets this fall, will race
in the Class AA state meet at the St. Olaf course in Northfield on Saturday,
Nov. 3. His steady improvement and dropping times will serve him well as he
races against the state's elite next week. He nearly took second as Owatonna
senior Mark Holzerland (16:16.5) barely beat him to the tape. Hyytinen had
previously finished second in the Missota Conference Championships at New
Prague in 16:22 on Oct. 16 as FHS finished fourth.
The Tigers
196 points helped them edge Rochester John Marshall (197) by a point as they
improved upon their ninth-place (260) result in 2011. Their total team time (five fastest finishers) was 1:26.45.3
, with an average finish of 17:21.1 and a five-runner time spread of 1:43.7.
"Out of
the 14 boys that ran varsity and junior varsity for us, 11 of them ran
personal-best times and the other three ran within a second of their fastest
run," said Lippold. "It
truly has been amazing to watch these runners this season make a name for
Farmington cross-country."
Senior Adam
Wallenta capped off his final high school race with a 26th-place finish
(17:15.9) while talented freshman Alex Hart topped off a promising season with
a run of 17:34.1 for 47th. Another
senior, Tyler Lerbakken, ran in unison with Hart and was 48th, also in
17:34.1.
Lippold
added, "Our goal was to have Adam, Alex, and Tyler run as a pack and work
with each other throughout the race and they did that and the results show
that."
Junior Sean
Dougherty (18:02.5) gave Farmington its final counting score as he completed
the 5K course in 72nd place.
Seniors Clayton Webb (18:30.7) and Caleb Eiffert (18:45.7) wound up
their careers for FHS in 91st and 97th place, respectively.
Owatonna,
seventh-ranked in Class AA and the Big Nine champions, won the team title with
a score of 53 to easily out-distance runner-up Rochester Century (125) and
third-place Red Wing (151). Rochester Century, second to Owatonna in the Big
Nine conference meet, was a full two minutes of team time behind the defending
champs. The Huskies' runners finished second, seventh, 13th, 15th, and 16th.
Both Owatonna and Century advance their teams to the 16-team AA competition at
St. Olaf next Saturday morning.
Hastings junior Zack Benning, ranked
ninth in AA, was the individual champion in 16:11.3 on the cold, wintery day.
However, the next Raider runner came in 80th and Hastings finished 15th (362). Kasson-Mantorville senior Derek Wiebke
was fourth (16:21.8). Owatonna
senior Cameron Petersson was seventh (16:28.8) while Century seniors Graham
Massot (16:31.9) and Colin Eakins (16:42) were eighth and 11th, respectively.
In the
junior varsity race, Farmington was seventh (193) as Owatonna (26) was first and Rochester Century (45) second,
just as in the varsity race.
"Our
top four junior varsity boys
established new personal-best times by quite a bit," stated
Lippold. "Josh Grimm finished
26th and was the only one of them who had broken 19 minutes and to see him run 18:26
was impressive and encouraging for next year. Hunter Sevenich and Santana
Perdomo, who were running in the low 19-minute range, ran 18:40.8 and 18:41.
With us losing four of our top seven to graduation, this sets us up well for
next year."
Other state
qualifiers include:
Samuel
Hanson (12) - Northfield (fifth in 16:27.7)
Aiden Winn
(11) - Red Wing (sixth in 16:28.1)
Corbin
Godrey (10) - Northfield (ninth in 16:35.7)
Hunter
Bailey (10) - Winona (10th in 16:36.9)
Jason
Windhorn (11) - Lakeville North (12th in 16:42.2)
Section 1AA
Team Results:
1) Owatonna -
53
2) Rochester Century - 125
3) Red Wing -
151
4) Lakeville North - 154
5) Northfield -
155
6) Farmington -
196
7) Rochester J.M.-
197
8) New Prague -
213
9) Rochester Mayo - 222
10) Austin
-
265
11)
Lakeville South -
268
12) Albert
Lea -
274
13) Winona
-
286
14)
Faribault -
339
15) Hastings
-
362
16) Kasson-Mantorville 373
