• Hess, contrary to an article in the Star Tribune on Sunday did not give up tennis to join cross country and she placed third last year as a sophomore at the state tournament, not 49th. Hess placed 24th as a ninth grader at state.
• Section 6A is a powerhouse in cross country. The section swept both the Class A team titles and the Class A individual titles for boys and girls.
• Coming out of Section 6A, Staples-Motley was first and Paynesville second. At state, Pay-nesville was first and Staples-Motley was third.
• The girls' teams from Section 6A were New London-Spicer first and Sauk Centre second with New London-Spicer placing first at state and Sauk Centre seventh.
• Of the seven girls who qualified for state in Section 6A, three were in the top 10, three more in the top 25, and one at 29th. Jen Hess placed first at both sections and state. Angie Mattke, NL-S, placed second in sections and fourth at state; Kirby Erickson, NL-S, placed third and ninth; Kayla Karness, NL-S, placed fourth and 23rd; Nikki Umhoefer, Sauk Centre, placed fifth and 16th; Brook Schmitz of Paynesville placed sixth and 25th and Kourtney Anderson of Wadena Deer Creek placed seventh and 29th.
• For boys' individual honors, Section 6A placed four runners in the top 10, two more in the top 20, and one at 53rd. Greg Liebl of Montevideo, who placed fourth in sections, was the state champion; Adam Asfeld, Wadena-Deer Creek, who took first at sections, placed third at state; Will Enns, LPGE, placed second at sections and took fourth at state; and the defending state champion, Jeff Brever of Staples-Motley, took third at sections and 14th at state. Paynesville's Clayton Lang was fifth at sections and sixth at state.
• St. Cloud Cathedral, also of the West Central Conference North, placed both their boys' and girls' teams in the state tournament. The girls took sixth at state while the boys placed 10th.
• Another runner Paynesville encountered during the year, Nathan Hoffman of Annandale took fifth place at the state meet.