By Bruce Karnick

Boys and Girls cross country ran on September 26th at St. Croix Bluffs Regional Park for the Conference preview. In Cross Country, each team scores their fastest five runners. Points are assigned on the place they finish. First gets one point, second gets two and so on. Lowest team score wins. On the Girls side, seven teams total would compete. To limit the number of runners on the course at one time, the teams were split in to three separate races. Hastings would be the third race of the day against Tartan. Mahtomedi would finish first overall, while Hastings would take fourth. Linnea Urban was the fastest Hastings runner, finishing second overall with a time of 20:49.0 behind Hill-Murray’s Vivian Gacek, who ran 20:29.8. The final team scores were: 1 Mahtomedi 47 2 Henry Sibley 56 3 Hill-Murray 83 4 Hastings 97 5 Simley 109 6 Tartan 135 7 South St Paul 200 Individual Hastings runners’ times: (PLACE NAME GRADE TIME) 2 Linnea Urban 12 20:49.9, 21 Molly Caturia 10 23:24.7, 23 Genevieve Lawson 23:34.4, 25 Elise Atkins 9 23:41.4, 26 Brooke Erickson 12 23:56.9, 28 Emma Kelly 9 24:05.7, 29 Autumn Adricula 11 24:09.2 For the Boys, nine teams total would compete. Using the same setup to limit the number of runners on the course, teams were divided into 3 races. Hastings was in the third race against Tartan and North St. Paul. Tyler Bushinski would finish sixth overall with a time of 17:46.7. Henry Sibley’s Magnus Herschback would claim the fastest time of the day with 16:54.4. The final team scores were: 1 Henry Sibley 48 2 St Thomas Ac 68 3 Mahtomedi 84 4 Tartan 111 5 Simley 113 6 Hastings 141 7 South St Paul 199 8 North St Paul 215 9 Hill-Murray 224 Individual Hastings runners’ times: (PLACE NAME GRADE TIME) 6 Tyler Bushinski 11 17:46.7, 30 Evan McGinnis 12 19:15.8, 31 Thomas Siebenaler 11 19:18.7, 36 Aaron Herber 10 19:40.9, 38 Noah Quigley 9 19:53.6, 40 Alex Siebenaler 11 19:57.2, 43 Max Albertson 10 20:20.2. Up next for both Boys and Girls is the Conference Championships on Saturday October 10th at St. Croix Bluffs. Times are yet to be determined

From hosting the first Varsity meet ever at the new High School, pictured above, to running in the Conference Championships on October 10th, Hastings Cross Country is happy to be running this year. Good luck to all of our runners at the Championships! Photo by Bruce Karnick