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Linnea Ronning’s hard work this season paid off, as she will represent Hastings at the State Cross Country Meet.

The Section 3AAA Cross Country meet was held at Valleywood Golf Course in Apple Valley on Oct. 27. Eight teams with 54 runners for the girls, and nine teams with 60 runners for the boys faced off with the top two teams and the top six individuals not on a qualifying team going to the state meet. The course was a little damp, the temperature was the perfect temperature to run a 5k in.

The girls kicked things off, and freshman Linnea Ronning led the way for Hastings. Ronning finished the course in an astounding 18:52.1, a strong personal best for her this season. That time was good enough to earn her second place overall. The first-place runner was senior Megan Lee from Bloomington Jefferson, who had a time of 17:42.5, 1:10 faster than Ronning.

Eastview -44 and Eagan -51 were the two qualifying teams. Hastings finished fifth overall with a team score of 148. Ivy Brandenberg (9) finished 28th with a time of 21:10.9, Genevieve Lawson (11) finished 37th with a time of 22:32.1 and Elise Atkins (11) finished right behind her with a time of 22:48.5. Lucy Burmeister (9) rounded out the scoring at 43rd with a time of 23:44.1.

Head Coach Joe Rabaey was proud of his runners.

“Linnea’s earned every single thing she's gotten this year, and she's just improved. She came in, won her first race, which is a great way to start. The amount of work she put in this year and the number of improvements she earned every step of the way, it's so great as a coach to see them get rewarded for their hard work like that. Honestly, the last month she's been on such a tear. We have had a number of runners who are just cutting off time left and right these last three or four races, so it's super awesome to see and awesome for them.”

The improvements over the start of the year were to the tune of around four minutes for Ronning and others, and the team has a bright future ahead with over half of the runners being freshmen this year.

On the boys’ side, Hastings finished ninth as a team with a score of 242. Individually, Tristan Herbst (9) placed 29th with a time of 17:34.2, just over two minutes behind the first-place finisher. Max Albertson (12) finished 49th with a time of 18.29.7, Josiah Trost (11) was just four seconds behind him in 51st place with a time of 18:33.7. Aaron Herber (12), Aiden Reuter (9), Ethan Hoff (9) and Brock Bauer (9) rounded out the scoring finishing 56, 57, 58 and 60.

The state meet will be held at St. Olaf in Northfield on Saturday, Nov. 8 at 9:30 a.m.

Linnea Ronning and head cross country coach Joe Rabaey after the Section 3AAA meet at Valleywood. Rabaey is proud of the strides that all of his runners made this season and he is excited for what the future holds with the youth of the team. Photo by Bruce Karnick