On Thursday, October 24 the North Shore Storm Cross Country team competed in the 2024 Section 7A meet at Eagle Ridge Golf Course in Coleraine, MN. The weather was partly sunny and perfect for racing. The Storm came into the meet with an outside chance of advancing a team and a few individuals. The last time a Storm team qualified for state was in 2021 when the girls team placed 2nd in 7AA, earning the right to compete at the state meet. The Storm has been competing in 7A for the last two seasons, after two seasons competing up in 7AA.
The boys raced first at noon, with the hopes of advancing a full team. The Storm faced two very tough teams in Southridge and Greenway /Nashwau k / Keewatin (GNK) who placed 1st and 2nd respectively. The boys finished 5th overall as a team, behind the top two spots needed to advance. Coming in 5th as an individual, and earning a state bid was Silver Bay’s own Nick Swartz, who ran a career PR of 17:16 for the 5k course.
The girls race followed the boys. The Storm girls are a very young team, and were not expected to place well, but also placed 5th as a team thanks to many individual PRs.
On the individual side Sophia Schut from Silver Bay ran a career PR of 20:33, placing 10th overall. She advanced to the state meet because five runners ahead of her are on the two teams (Carlton-Wrenshall and GNK) who advanced. Sierra Geatz missed the top 6 individual cut-off by two places, running a career PR of 20:46.
Nick and Sophia will compete at the state meet on Saturday, Nov 2 at the University of Minnesota’s Les Bolstad golf course. The Storm has a bright future ahead of them as they only graduate four Seniors this year. Make sure to keep watching them each season as they strive to advance teams to the state meet.
