After finishing at the bottom of the pack in last year’s Class A State Cross Country Meet, International Falls’ girls team is looking to do better this Saturday when the Broncos will be competing at St. Olaf College in Northfield for the second season in a row.
“They still have in the back of their minds that we ended up dead last, and they don’t want that this year,” said Falls head coach Paul Hjelle. “I think they’re going to be more confident, and I think we’re going to run better as a team than we did last year just because of that experience that we had.”
Hjelle said the Broncos’ goal this year at state is to finish among the top-14 teams.
“A lot of those teams are deep,” he said. “They’ve got kids that are running (4,000-meter races) in the 15 (minutes) and 16 (minutes) in their top five. We don’t have that. We have two or three that can do that, so the odds are against us.
“But if you put your mind to it, you can do whatever you want. We’re going to go down there and we’re going to battle and do the best we can.”
The Broncos’ top-five runners who have consistently counted in the point standings are all returning to the state meet.
This year’s top-two runners — eighth-grader Lexi Erickson and junior Sydney Raboin — finished fourth and seventh, respectively, at last Thursday’s Section 7A meet where they could have qualified for state individually had the entire team not qualified by placing second.
“We know what to expect this year, and we’re just going to try to perform better than we did last year,” Raboin said.
Raboin had the Broncos’ top individual finish at the 2011 state meet by completing the 4,000-meter course in 16 minutes, 12.2 seconds, for 66th place out of 156 finishers.
The top-two teams from each of the eight Sections and the top-eight individuals not on a qualifying team in each Section all advance to this year’s state meet.
Though last year’s Class A state champion, St. Cloud Cathedral, didn’t qualify as a team in 2012, 10 of the 16 teams that appeared last year are back again this year, including the other four schools finishing in top five — Annandale, Esko, The Blake School of Minneapolis and Waseca — all Section champions in 2012.
The Broncos have already competed against Esko, the Section 7A champion the Falls finished runner-up to for the second straight year, along with the runner-up in Section 8A, Warroad, a team that has finished both ahead and behind the Broncos at meets this season.
“I think we’ll be able to beat Warroad, and I think we’ll do better than last year,” Erickson said.
Erickson, who competed in her first year at the varsity level in 2011 and could potentially become a six-time state qualifier in cross country, placed 108th at last year’s state meet in 16:49.4.
One Falls runner, junior Amy Auran, will be competing at state for a third consecutive year after having qualified individually in 2010.
“It’s definitely a lot more fun to go as a team, because you have everybody there to enjoy it with you,” Auran said. “I think we’ll have fun during the race, and when we’re not running, also.”
Auran last year placed 137th in 17:34.7.
Two Bronco senior captains who have been part of the team’s top five — Amber Harms and Rachel Foss — will be competing in the final race of their high school cross country careers Saturday.
“Our big goal is to beat (Warroad),” Harms said. “We just want to do better than we did last year.”
At the 2011 state meet, Harms had the Broncos’ second-best individual time after finishing 103rd in 16:43.1.
Foss also wants to improve on last year’s results.
“I know they’ll be more runners at state this year because of the new rule adding more people, but I still want to place better than I did last year,” she said.
In 2011, Foss placed 148th in 18:09.
The top-five runners from last year’s Class A state meet are all returning in 2012. Clare Flanagan of Blake was the 2011 winner in 14:21.7.
This year’s Section 7A individual champion, Esko’s Marisa Shady, placed third at the 2011 state meet after having won the title in 2010.
The weather at last year’s state meet was unseasonably warm for early November in Minnesota, in stark contrast to the snow at last Thursday’s Section 7A meet in Cloquet. Hjelle said the team will be prepared for any kind of weather conditions Saturday.
“That’s the thing about cross country, you never know what you’re going to get this time of year,” he said.
The Class A state girls meet starts at 11 a.m. Saturday.
