Northfield girls cross country places well at Meet of Champions

In its final regular season meet before the start of its championship season, the No. 3 (Class AA) ranked Northfield High School girls cross country team placed fifth at the Alexandria Meet of Champions on Saturday, Oct. 5 in Alexandria.

The Raiders compiled a team score of 179 points, while No. 1 (Class AA) ranked St. Paul Highland Park won the race with a score of 80. No. 6 (Class AAA) Mounds View placed second with 101 points, and No. 2 (Class AA) Perham placed third with a score of 143. Host and No. 4 (Class AA) Alexandria completed the top four with a score of 144.

Northfield did place ahead of No. 1 (Class A) St. Cloud Cathedral, which had 197 points in sixth place and No. 5 (Class AA) Willmar that placed 10th with 216 points. Of note, a total of 20 teams participated in this year’s 5K event that was held at the Arrowwood Resort in Alexandria.

Linnea Ousdigian of Mounds View was the meet medalist with a time of 17:49.4, while Anna Forbord led the Raiders in 11th place at 19:31.1. Teammate Addison Enfield broke into the top 20 at the meet with an 18th place time of 19:46.1

Claire Forbord placed 43rd for the Raiders with a time of 20:23.5 and teammate Peyton Quaas was 54th at 20:48.0. Ivy Brandenburg completed Northfield’s top five scorers with a 58th place time of 20:52.2. Northfield’s other runners in the race included Allia Doherty (83rd place at 21:28.0) and Karmen Jagiela (84th place at 21:28.6).

In the girls junior varsity race, Northfield placed seventh out of 17 teams with a total of 215 points. Ani Gottfried led the team in 22nd place with a time of 21:52.4.

The Raiders will start their postseason competition on Tuesday, Oct. 15 with a trip to the 2024 Big 9 Conference meet that will take place in Owatonna at the Brooktree Golf Course. The following week, Northfield will then travel to the Section 1AA championship that will be held at Alexander Park in Faribault on Thursday, Oct. 24.