Glen Strandberg
Sports Editor

The Suburban East Conference cross country meet arrives on Thursday afternoon, and the Forest Lake boys have continued to essentially race right up to the event.

The week leading up to the SEC competition had the Rangers running in the Blaine Invitational on Oct. 4, and up in Duluth for the Swain Invitational on Saturday.

While the rest of Minnesota was suffering from heat exhaustion last weekend, Duluth was sampling nasty weather, which made for miserable racing conditions.

But with 27 schools participating in the 5K, Forest Lake came in sixth place with 161 points. Minneapolis South won the event with 75 points.

Zach Waldoch was up to his usual standards, cruising to a seventh place finish with a time of 17:32.4.

Behind him was a familiar group of Rangers, where the names remain the same, but the order can always be different.

“Zach is proving to be a solid front-runner for the team and that is pulling his teammates to some good finishes,” head coach Deno Johnson said.

Nate Moen was 28th overall at 18:13.5, and Ben Brodin was in 35th place at 18:21.4. Ryan Wright, Andy Orth and Spencer Cossalter were lumped together at 45th, 46th and 47th place, respectively, and Mitch Wohlk came in 85th place overall.

Before Mother Nature turned ugly in Duluth, the team was in Blaine on Thursday afternoon. And if there was anything to complain about, it was the fact that it was too warm at Majestic Oaks.

Giving a good indication of how Saturday would turn out, Forest Lake came in fifth place with 143 points, while those boys from Minneapolis South came in first with 91 points.

Waldoch broke the 17-minute barrier and took eighth place at 16:57.6. Once again, Nate Moen was next for the Rangers in 17th place, with a time of 17:14.4.

On this sunny day, Orth would be the third Ranger, coming in at 29th place (17:44.5), and he was followed by Brodin (33rd), Wright (56th), Wohlk (57th) and Dave Medina (59th).

Now Johnson has Forest Lake pointing toward major meets like the SEC championships and the upcoming Section 7AA meet.

“The boys have been training hard and we’ll be tapering soon,” he said. “I’m looking forward to seeing some good time-drops now.”

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