By Bruce Karnick

For many of the Hastings Cross-Country team, September first of 2020 included many firsts. Their first competition of the season, their first time competing in over a year, and the first ever Varsity Cross-Country race held on the new high school grounds. Setting up the course was a testament to the patience of Coach Greg Sandcamp. How did he measure the 5-kilometer course? “With a measuring wheel.” He chuckled. “I went a round to get a rough idea, then I had to refine it to get the right amount.” “I knew we couldn’t do it in one lap, so we had to do it in two.” He continued to laugh while telling the story. He would work out the math, realize he had to add “a football field here” or another few hundred yards there. He even had to add a loop around the water tower to get an extra 300 feet. How many times did he walk the course? “I did it three times the other day and twice today to verify. I got a lot of walking in that’s for sure.”

With the course laid out, there was a lot of excitement between the coaches, runners, and fans in attendance. “It’s about time yeah, we missed them for a year. Ya know, I have a lot of these kids that would have done track and field in the spring.” Sandcamp continued. The Cross-Country team is young. So young, they did not graduate any runners last year.

For this meet, the girls would be facing off against Simley and the boys would get both Simley and St Thomas Academy.

The girls were first up to the start line and they had only one group of runners. The top five Hastings times were: Linnea Urban who finished first overall at 21:44.3, Taylor LittleSoldier 23:51, Molly Caturia 27:13, Brooke Erickson 27:23, Emma Kelly 27:28.

After the race, Linnea felt really good about the first race at the High School in 20 years. “To get one (a race) in was really, really nice.” “I was shooting for a 21 something so I feel pretty good that” regarding her 21:44 time. Urban had to point out, “It was just REALLY hot.” The upside is, the high school grounds sits on one of the highest points in Dakota County, so there was a breeze to help mitigate some of the heat. “The breeze and when you came around the water tower in the little shade, we all got goosebumps there was such a temperature difference” she chuckled. Regarding the course layout, “I liked it, it kind of loops around and you got to see all the fields and stuff.”

The Boys took their turn on the course, sporting four different groups of runners. Each group was limited to 25 participants and each group was started two minutes apart to help with keeping the athletes spread out. St. Thomas Academy claimed the top 4 spots of the race. The top Hastings runner was Tyler Bushinski with a time of 18:31. After the race, Tyler discussed his first race, “I thought it was going to be harder, it was actually easier than I expected, I thought it was going to be terrible. It turned out to be a good race.” Tyler worked out over the summer running three miles daily and throwing in a ten-mile run now and then. He also participated in Raider Express, the high school offseason conditioning program. How was running on school grounds? “It was different, much different. Normally we are running at the Bluffs.” “3.1 miles is a lot, the [school] grounds are big but they are not THAT big.” What does it mean to run a varsity race at the school? “It’s cool I guess.”. Nearby, Linnea heard his response and had to jump in and give him a hard time. It’s apparent these kids enjoy being around each other, supporting one another and treating each other like family.

Cross-Country runs again against Tartan and Mahtomedi in Mahtomedi on September 18th at 4:30.