Minnesota State Meet

Edina Girls Pack Up Nicely For Class AA Team Title

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

The Edina girls used a 18-second compression from 1 to 5 and crushed a talented field at the Minnesota state cross county championships with 55 points. 

All five Edina scorers crossed the line between 14th and 27th place (18:37.9 to 18:52.5) in the Class AA race at St. Olaf College in Northfield. Edina also won team titles in 2015 and 2016.

Junior Analee Weaver of Stillwater Area ran 17:46.1 to win the girls race, but top-ranked team in the Heartland region could not keep its five scorers together and finished fifth. 

Wayzata was second with 109 points and St. Michael-Albertville was third with 115 points. 

Mounds View pulled out a one-point victory over Eden Prairie to win the boys AA title, 86-87 for the school's first championship. 

Mounds  View's five scorers all were inside the top 40, while Eden Prairie's fifth man was 54th. 

Senior Oliver Paleen of St. Paul Highland Park put a stamp on his season with a state championship, covering hte 5,000-meter course in 15:25.2. He was five seconds clear of Chanhassen's Nicholas Scheller at the finish tape. 

Regionally ranked White Bear Lake finished a distant seventh.

Junior Geno Uhrbom from Greenway/Nashwauk/Keewatin won his second consecutive Class A boys title with a time of 15:27.6. He won by 15 seconds. 

Junior Morgan Gehl of Murray County Central, who was third in 2018, dominated the girls race and won by 27 seconds in 17:53.5. 

Perham's boys and girls teams both won team titles for the third year in a row.  Perham is the alma mater of Gabriele Gruenewald, who died this year after a long battle with cancer and launched the hashtag #bravelikegabe.

State Champions - 

Class AA - Mounds View boys 86 points, Edina girls 55 points - RESULTS

Class A - Perham boys 75 points, Perham girls 103 points - RESULTS