NORTHFIELD – On a bluebird day at the
first MSHSL cross-country state championships in two years, Finn McCormick was
on his way to a gold medal.
The senior from Nova Classical Academy in
St. Paul was about 100 yards from the finish line, holding a good lead over Perham
senior Jakob McCleary as the rest of the 160-man field chased. That’s when Finn
went down.
Coming up the 5,000-meter course’s final
hill-- just before the straightaway that is lined with cheering fans and ends
at the finish line – Finn went down and got up. Then he went down again and got
up. It kept happening. Over and over.
“I told myself to get up and go, get up and go, get up and go,”
he said afterwards. “I fell like four times. My hips locked up at the hill. I
didn't have anything left.”
And yet,
somehow, with nothing left in the tank and hips that were not cooperating, Finn
finished. McCleary zipped past him and led the field to the line, and six other
runners got there before McCormick stumbled across. But he got there. No matter
what it took.
He had never
ever fallen in a race before Saturday, but he knew what he had to do. Get up
and get going. Get up and get going. Reach that finish line.
“All I did
was just get up and go, get up and go, get up and go,” he repeated.
He got up
and placed eighth, which was vital to Nova capturing the team state
championship. The Knights finished with a first-place margin
of 122-128 over second-place Perham, which means if McCormick had finished 15th
or lower – or not finished at all -- the Knights would have placed second or
lower.
“Before he
went down I was like, ‘I’ve got to really kick it up a notch,’ ” McCleary said.
“I knew that at the last hill I would have to go all out. When I saw him fall,
it was kind of hard to see that.”
McCleary’s
time was 16 minutes, 09.64 seconds; Finn was 35 seconds back.
Before
falling, McCormick had passed McCleary and knew he was in control of the race.
“It's hard,”
he said. “I mean, I was pretty excited. Coming around that stretch before the
hill I was pretty amped that I was in first. I knew I had dropped Jakob and it
was just go, go go. But then when I hit the hill, like all of a sudden the legs
locked and I went down.
“It was just
like, ‘Get up and go, get up and go, get up and go.’ I heard people screaming
that and that was kind of the only thing going through my head. … I put
everything out there.”
Lost Appendix, Gained Glory
Emmett Gerres, a junior from Belle Plaine,
didn’t seem all that astonished at his eighth-place finish in Saturday’s Class
2A boys state championship race. But go back a couple weeks to when Gerres was
hospitalized, and his performance in even getting to state is remarkable.
Six days before the Oct. 26 Section 2AA championship
race, Gerres underwent emergency surgery to remove his
appendix. “It needed to
come out pretty quickly,” he said.
He was in the hospital and missed the Big
Nine Conference meet but was back with his teammates for the section meet.
“I was
pretty confident in my recovery that I'd be able to run,” he said. “I just
wanted to so badly. I didn't think anything would hold me back.”
He obviously
couldn’t run right after the surgery, but got a two-miler in the day before the
section meet at Gale Woods Farm in Minnestrista. He didn’t feel great at the
section race, which is not surprising. Oh, and he finished first.
“It was a
completely different race for me because I'm used to leading,” Emmett said. “I
had to stick back and just hold it out with a second-place guy until the last
half mile. I didn’t feel great. I was able to finish and recover pretty good
afterwards.”
And
Saturday? “I feel fine today,” he said. “I didn't feel like it affected my race
at all.”
From
Last To Seventh
Two years ago, Isaiah Anderson was an
eighth-grader running for Mankato East when he competed at the state
cross-country meet for the first time. The ending was not all that pretty,
because he was the last runner to cross the finish line.
“I don't
think I was ready for that,” he said Saturday. “It was pretty stressful.”
With no fall
state tournaments held in 2020 due to Covid-19, it was two years before Isaiah
returned to run at St. Olaf College. And boy, did he run, placing seventh in
Class 2A.
“This time,
I knew I was going to be trying to get a top 10 finish,” he said.
His time in
2019 was 18:35.2 seconds. His time Saturday was 16:13.90. He
said he worked hard over the two-year gap between state championships, putting
in a lot of miles.
Anderson finished
second at the Section 2 championships, leading the Cougars to a second-place
spot as a team and earning a trip to state. They placed eighth Saturday.
Great
Sendoff, Great Ending
When Hutchinson sophomore Isabelle Schmitz left school on
Friday for the trip to Northfield and some pre-race time on the course, she was
given a royal sendoff. The only runner from Hutchinson to qualify for state,
she walked down a wide stairway in the school commons area as the band played
the Superman theme and her fellow students applauded, cheered and gave her high
fives. (Video of the scene can be viewed on the @HutchActivities Twitter account.)
She returned home in equally
super fashion as a state champion. Isabelle ran to a dominating victory in
Class 2A, with her time of 17:59.4 topping second-place sophomore Olivia Goebel
of Albany by eight seconds. The 2A girls top 10 included four sophomores, three
juniors and three seniors.
State Champions
Class 1A boys
Individual: Jakob McCleary, Perham
Team: Nova Classical Academy
Class 1A girls
Individual: Amanda Overgaauw, Murray County
Central
Team: Staples-Motley
Class 2A boys
Individual: Alden Keller, Breck
Team: Big Lake
Class 2A girls
Individual: Isabelle Schmitz, Hutchinson
Team: St. Paul Highland Park
Class 3A boys
Individual: Nick Gilles, Minnetonka
Team: Wayzata
Class 3A girls
Individual: Ali Weimer, St.
Michael-Albertville
Team: Edina
Complete results can be found here: https://results.wayzatatiming.com/meets/11779
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