NXN Heartland: First Portland Trip For Hopkins Boys, Edina Girls?

This will mark the third time in four seasons that Jenks has started her season at this meet; though there's minimal evidence of the triathlete's running fitness, she's run this race three times and placed second (in eighth grade), first, and third (last year). It seems safe to pen her, the Hasz twins, and Ping in for four of the individual spots. That means two things: that Logue, Shirley-Fairbairn, Aubrey Roberts, and a slew of other girls will be more or less competing for one miserly spot. And with exactly four superstar individuals, nearly all of the dramatic juice is in the team race.

Wayzata is the three-time defending champion, but they didn't crack the top three at the Minnesota state meet, which went Edina 68, Marshall 76, Willmar 118, Wayzata 151.  Not getting out of the brutal Section 6AA meet was Minnetonka, which only finished ten points behind Wayzata there.  Edina and Marshall seem clearly better than Wayzata or Willmar, but it would be a first-time qualification for both of the former squads.

Urbandale (Iowa) is looking to break up the Minnesota teams at the top, and they have good reason to believe that they can do so.  The J-Hawks edged out Minnetonka and Wayzata 214-228-239 at Roy Griak, and that was with a 1:44 spread--thirty seconds worse than they showed they were capable of at the Iowa state meet.

THE PICK: 1. Edina (MN) 2. Marshall (MN)