By Bruce Karnick

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The Dewey Minnaert invitational crosscountry race is held each year in honor of retired long time Hastings teacher and cross country coach Dwayne “Dewey” Minnaert. Minnaert retired in 1996 from teaching Industrial Arts, he had also retired from coaching. His replacement was John Dewall who retired last year. Hastings has been blessed to have two amazing crosscountry coaches over the last 60 plus years. Minnaert was on hand for this year’s invite where he was introduced to the runners at the start of the event.

The invite started with the Girl’s Junior Varsity team, followed by Girls’ Varsity, Boys’ Varsity and finally the Boys’ Junior Varsity. It featured teams from all over the region, Hastings, Burnsville, CretinDerham Hall, Eagan, East Ridge, Mahtomedi, Osseo, Park, Saint Croix Prep, Saint Thomas, Tartan and Woodbury.

Individual times for Girls Varsity: (Time – Athlete – Place) 22:05.56 Linnea Ronning 3rd CROSS COUNTRY

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24:22.36 Ivy Brandenburg 18th 24:57.54 Genevieve Lawson 21st 25:03.98 Lucy Burmeister 22nd 25:10.63 Lindsay Mathison 23rd 25:18.60 Elise Atkins – 25th Individual times for Boys Varsity: 19:02.01 Noah Quigley 29th 19:27.83 Max Albertson 48th 19:55.09 Josiah Trost 56th 20:02.47 Aiden Reuter 60th 20:39.10 Aaron Herber 69th On the team side, Hastings placed 10th of 12 teams for the boys with a score of 244. Osseo finished first with a score of 47. Remember, team scores are based on lowest score wins because it is based off one point per place of the top runners. The girls finished in third out of four teams with a score of 68. Osseo also took first place for the girls with a score of 26.

Head Coach Joe Rabaey was excited for his team’s progress from week one. “We had great races all around at our home invite at St. Croix bluffs. Overall, most runners improved about 30 seconds to a minute from our first meet on Thursday, September first. Our first meet was really hot and humid, not great weather for running, so it was great to see everyone respond and run some fast times this week. Linnea Ronning has had two outstanding races, winning our first meet for the girls and taking third in the Minnaert invitational against some really good competition. Molly Caturia also had a great race this week, cutting three and a half minutes off the first race, which is incredible. She was dealing with some injuries during the first race, so to see her come back and respond like that in the second race is exciting.”

The next chance to catch the Raider runners is on September 20 at Hudson Middle School at 3:45.

Dwayne “Dewey” Minnaert, a long time Hastings teacher and cross-country coach is honored each year for his impact on the Raider’s cross-country program. Photo by Bruce Karnick