Heat, tough field takes toll on C-M

The humidity took its toll and so did the competition as the Canby-Minneota girls finished fourth and the boys fifth at Marshall’s large meet on Monday.

C-M’s stalwart runner Grace Drietz hasn’t had much luck against Murray County Central’s Morgan Gehl all year.

Both are slender and young runners, but Gehl has become the class of the area — with Drietz close behind.

Gehl won in 18:45.6 with Drietz second 51 seconds later at 19:06.

Among the 90 runners, were the other four top C-M runners with MacKenzie Ruether back in 23rd, Faith Traen in 30th and both Aidyn Bruns and Kameron King further back.

As a result, Marshall won the meet with 42 points and C-M was fourth way back at 140.

Gehl pushed MCC into third just ahead of Canby-Minneota. The boys didn’t fair quite as well, finishing fifth as Waconia won the meet with 58 points and the C-M boys were way back at 140 points in fifth place.

The top local runner was Jalyn Ufkin in 16th place at 17:59.8 as Marshall’s Zach Matzner took the field in 16:41.6.

After Ufkin were Blake Stoks, Jared Josephson, Sean Dilley and Alexander Full.

Tracy Invitational “This is a good sized meet with 16 teams,” said Coach Allyson Pesek. On the boys side, Jalyn Ufkin finished ninth, leading the boys to a third place finish out of 12 complete boys teams.

The other top five for Canby-Minneota were: Jared Josephson 11th; Blake Stoks 14th; Sean Dilley 21st and Tristan Bierschenk, 30th.

“The boys continue to show great improvements!” added Coach Pesek. Redwood Valley won the meet. In the girls’ race, Canby-Minneota was led by Grace Drietz in second and McKenzie Ruether in sixth. The team placed second out of eight completing teams.

“It was a great night for a meet and we had some great showings!” said the coach.

Drietz finished at 19:45, just 29 seconds behind the champion Morgan Gehl of Murray County Central.

Canby-Minneota’s next top runners were 6. McKenzie Ruether; 11. Faith Traen; 31. RyAnn Hansen and 43. Kameron King.