Posted: 9/3/02

Cross country teams open season at Apollo

Berk Brown
Sports Editor

Forest Lakeís boys and girls cross country teams opened their seasons on Tuesday, Aug. 27, at the St. Cloud Apollo Early Bird Invitational.

Led by top-10 finishes from Kristen Howe and Laura Edlund, the Forest Lake girls placed fourth in the team standings. Forest Lake finished eighth in the 11-team boys standings.

St. Cloud Cathedral won the girls team title with 72 followed by Sauk Rapids at 79, Hutchinson at 83 and Forest Lake with 106. Nine complete girls teams competed in the meet.

Wayzata won the boys team title with 59 followed with Hutchinson with 84, Sartell with 87 and Sauk Rapids with 145. Forest Lake finished eighth with 178.

While both coaches were pleased with the way the Rangers competed in their first meet, both said itís too early in the season to put much weight into the results.

ìThis early in the season, thereís nothing to be concerned about,î Forest Lake girls coach Janet Howe said. ìWeíre just getting into race shape. Weíre young and weíll be able to make a lot of improvements. Weíve got time to get where we need to be.î

Boys coach Cam Stottler agreed with Howe in that his team did well but just simply wasnít in quite good enough shape to do better in its first meet.

ìWe set some goals for the mile (mark) and the two mile and we did a good job of getting to those goals,î Stottler said. ìWhat we found out is that we donít have the stamina to get all the way through. We know thatís something we need to work on, but I would rather be aggressive and go after the goals at this point.î

Forest Lakeís top two boys runners were Chad Bjorklund and Peter Bailey. Complete times and placings were not available at deadline.

Kristen Howe placed fifth for the Rangers in a time of 15:47 and Edlund took eighth in 16:06. Heidi Lindeman of Coon Rapids won the individual champion in 14:56.

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