Dan Johnson was the first runner in 23rd place. Close behind him were Nathan Bork in 24th and Doug Utsch in 25th. The third runner for the team was Andrew Heinen in 29th place. Close on Heinenís heels was Matt Jorgensen in 30th place.
Freshman Luke Trees ran a strong race, finishing 33rd, as did Ryan Louis in 36th place.
Paynesvilleís top five runners were all within twenty seconds of each other and all seven were within thirty.
'
Team standings
1) Staples 25
2) Sauk Centre 104
3) Rocori 109
4) Paynesville 126
5) NL-S 133
6) Pierz 172
7) LPGE 218
8) Litchfield 228
9) Dassel-Cokato 231
10) ACGC 242
11) Holdingford 277
12) Maccray 290
BBE inc.
Minnewaska inc.
Individual results
23) Dan Johnson 18:35
24) Nathan Bork 18:36
25) Doug Utsch 18:38
29) Andrew Heinen 18:54
30) Matt Jorgensen 18:55
33) Luke Trees 19:00
36) Ryan Louis 19:05
Junior varsity
The boys junior varsity team showed a fine performance finishing in second place out of 14 teams.
Clayton Lang ran an outstanding race with a time of 19:10. He finished third. Next across the line was Chad Hollander in 9th. Josh Frenchick was close behind in 10th. Eric Werlinger and Nathan Pelz finished in 14th and 17th places.
The junior high boys also performed well, finishing in fourth place out of 14 teams.
Ryan Flanders and Eric Rausch led the team in 8th and 9th places. Next in for the Bulldogs were Eric Korman, 22nd, and Travis Flanders, 24th. Adam Utsch and Josh Orbeck finished in 26th and 28th. Andrew Jones ran to 32nd.
The team competed in their last regular season meet in Sauk Centre last night. Their first post-season meet will be in Litchfield on Oct. 10.
Albany
The Paynesville cross country team finished fourth of five teams in the Purple Pride meet on Monday, Sept. 23 in Albany.
Some of this can be blamed on an incredibly hard practice on the Thursday night before the meet and also because of the meet at Princeton on Saturday, two days before the meet at Albany. With this many meets and hard practices thrown into such a small time frame, the runner's body can become very worn out.
The varsity team's first runner at Albany was Dan Johnson in fifth place. Johnson ran an outstanding race, beating Long Prairie's Nathaniel Flan, who is one of the toughest runners in the conference.
Matt Jorgensen was the team's second runner in 13th place. Andrew Heinen crossed the finish line five seconds later in 15th place.
The fourth runner was freshman Luke Trees. He finished in 18th place in his very first varsity race. Doug Utsch crossed the line next in 20th place. Ryan Louis was close behind him in 23rd. Chad Hollander ran a strong race and finished 30th.
Team standings
1) Big Lake 45
2) Sauk Centre 60
3) Albany 64
4) Paynesville 71
5) LPGE 1 12
BBE inc.
Individual results
5) Dan Johnson 17:40
13) Matt Jorgensen 18:16
15) Andrew Heinen 18:21
18) Luke Trees 18:25
20) Doug Utsch 18:32
23) Ryan Louis 18:47
30) Chad Hollander 20:40
Junior varsity
The story of the day was the awesome run of eighth grader Clayton Lang in the junior varsity race. He won in 19:09.
Josh Frenchick was the next runner in second place. Eric Werlinger was close behind in third. Nathan Pelz and Ryan Flanders finished in 5th and 6th to give the team a near perfect score of 17. The junior varsity team took first.
The junior high boys also took first. Eric Korman led, finishing in 4th place. Andrew Jones was 5th. Adam Utsch ran to a 6th place finish. Josh Orbeck and Travis Flanders were 8th and 11th.