Mounds View: Winning Despite Losses

The Mounds View High School’s boy track team is picking up where it left off last year. At the University of Minnesota/ROTC meet on Saturday, the two-time defending MSHSL Class AA and True Team Class AAA champions won their season-opening meet 50 to 41 over Coon Rapids.

A few days before that, the Minnesota State Track and Field Coaches’ Association ranked the Mustangs #1 in the Class AAA True Team poll, HERE.

But if Mounds Views top-of-the-table position feels familiar, many of the names synonymous with the Mustangs success in recent years are now absent due to graduation. Quinn Evans, the fastest quarter-miler in Minnesota prep history, is attending the University of Wisconsin these days, while hurdler Sean Duling, horizontal jumper Tommy McNamara, and middle distance runner Mike Shelendich are competing for the University of Minnesota.

If the 2008 Mustangs are to replicate the program’s MSHSL three-peat from 1999-2001 – something only it, Stillwater (1996-1998), Minneapolis Washburn (1940-1942) and Minneapolis West (1937-1939) have ever done among large schools -- new feet will need to fill the big shoes of graduated stars.

Ross Fleming's Mustangs do return three individuals from their MSHSL title-winning squad. Quarter-miler Kevin Bradley – who won at Minnesota/ROTC in 50.71 – finished third in the Class AA 400m final last year. Andrew Balzar, the tenth-fastest prep 400m runner in Minnesota in 2007 and the fifth-fastest non-senior, also returns for the Mustangs. It’s not surprising the Mustangs won the 4 x 400 meter relay at Minnesota/ROTC.

State Meet shot putter Joe Johnson returns as well. He enters 2008 as the eight-longest putter in the state with his season-best 51-6 ½ from 2007. He finished 6th at Minnesota/ROTC with 46-5 1/2, a place behind teammate Jon Rux’s 47-4 ¾.

In 2007, Mounds View won the MSHSL Class AA meet with a whopping 97 points – more than double Hopkins runner-up total of 44 – but no single team, including the Mustangs, appear a prohibitive favorite in 2008. If anything, the field seems wide-open with Mounds View one a dozen or more programs with realistic hopes for a glorious June.

Unfamiliar names and faces, it seems likely, will prove critical to the crowning of the 2008 State champions, whether they’re new names associated with an old dynasty in Mounds View or those attached to a new chapter in Minnesota high school track and field history.