Wayzata "Brings It"

The Wayzata boy's and girl's team champions

Wayzata swept everything except the girl's individual title in dominating the Class AA championships on Saturday at St. Olaf.  The battle in both team races was for second place.  In the boy's individual race, the Trojan's Connor Olson recovered from a sub par track season to capture the elusive XC gold medal.

"It's hard to win a State title, especially in this State"  Olson said afterward.  An opinion shared by his father Tony and coach Bill Miles.  Tony noted that the cross country victory was doubly sweet because of the difficulties that led to a sub par 2014 track season where Olson failed to qualify for the MSHSL track championships.  Injuries and growth spurts resulted in a different physique and more awareness of how to  mix the right levels of stress and rest in order to stay healthy.

Connor Olson talks to the media after winning the boy's title.
The MSHSL's John Millea in the background. Photo by Jim
Ferstle

Taller and leaner, Olson, much to his father's delight, started his sports career as a hockey player.  He was a defenseman, the guy who had to go into the corners and dig out the pucks, Tony said.  The corner work also involved getting slammed into the boards by players much bigger than Connor.  He and Miles would close their eyes often when Connor would be doing his job in the corners, but the real turning point in Olson's hockey career came when he was told that in order to make it as a player he'd have to "bulk up" and grow into a 180 pounder.

A hockey trainer took Tony aside and advised him that the time was coming that Connor would have to make some decisions.  "Connor loved hockey," his father said, but his physical gifts were more balanced toward his current endurance sports than banging into the boards and hockey's "enforcers."  While contact sports, like hockey, have their obvious risks, running's physical drawbacks are often subtle. When is an ache or pain something you can "run through" or the body's way of telling you to back off?

How do you control and absorb growth spurts?  What's the right combination of speed work and endurance training?  Like any distance runner, Olson has had to learn, often the hard way, how to manage a runner's instrument, his body.  "His coaches have been fantastic," Tony said.  "After the Griak meet, he rode back in the car with Bill Miles.  They had a talk."

Despite often being outkicked, that hasn't diverted Olson toward drastic changes in strategy.  His strength is his endurance, the ability to grind opponents down, rather than blow by them in the final quarter. "I don't tell (his athletes) what do do," says Miles.  He sees himself as more of an advisor, a sounding board.  "What do you think?" is a common question the Wayzata runners get.  There are all sorts of different systems, Miles says, ways to get "the best" out of oneself, not one magic formula or one size fits all training and development.

The key, says Miles, is finding out what is right for you.  Miles' endurance training program fits Olson's strengths.  His present and future coaches believe that his endurance background will lead to more opportunities to excel at college's longer distances.  Olson has chosen to attend the University of Minnesota and he announced that decision last week.  Connor made the announcement early, Miles says, because he wanted to lead the way.  He wanted to let Minnesota's other  top high school distance runners, who may be undecided, have the opportunity to join him at the U and help the Gophers build a strong team with Minnesota talent.

With Olson's win, the Gophers have the last two Minnesota HS XC champions with last year's winner, Obsa Ali, already contributing to the squad this year

Joey Duerr(611) and Zac Miller(612) greet friends.  Nadir Yusuf(569)
and Joe Klecker(sitting on the ground behind Yusuf. Photo by
Jim Ferstle

Nine of the top ten finishers in the AA race are graduating.  Runner up Joey Duerr and third-place finisher Joe Klecker, as well as fourth place finisher Nick Wareham may well be high on many coaches lists.  Duerr missed all of last cross country season with Achilles problems, but he hopes he's finally found a solution as the current therapy he's getting for the sore tendon appears to be working.  Duerr was running every other day earlier in the season and still was able to get up for second unleashing a fierce kick down the final straight.

"I wasn't expecting to have that much left," he said. "In the past by the time I come up that last hill I've been shot."  He certainly wasn't this year, despite not having a full season of training.  Klecker also missed last season with a stress fracture, but has stayed healthy this year.  After his win in the Sections, a lot of people thought he was the favorite for the State title. Both he and Olson will be running in the NXN Regionals next weekend and both have been aiming for the events after State.

Both Klecker and Olson said that their training this XC season is set up to take advantage of events such as Footlocker and Nike Nationals(NXN).  The Wayzata girls team won the unofficial national team championship at NXN last year.  

They have the opportunity to take a shot at retaining their title, and to get there they have to qualify at the Regional races for NXN in South Dakota next weekend.  They seem to be coming around at the right time. Girl's coach Dave Emmons was thankful that the team responded to the challenge this year by Willmar, who had seemed to have taken a page out of the Trojan's playbook from last year with great team running leading up to the State Meet.

The State Meet results were not indicative of the Willmar team's talent, said coach Jerry Popp.  Instead of packing their team up front, as they had all season,  the team maintained their impressive pack running with their top five finishing within 17.5 seconds of one another, but they were too far back in the field. Not only did they lose first, but finished third two points behind Edina.

Popp said he didn't have an answer to why the team performed as they did, but there is the opportunity for some return to form at NXN Heartland Regional Meet next weekend.  Edina coach Matt Gabrielson said he had a premonition before the race that his team would finish second.  It came true as they had the second best pack gap of the teams at 34.4 seconds.

He transferred his confidence to the team, and also told them that they should make the most of this opportunity as there are no guarantees for any team to get out of the "death Section," 6AA, which is packed with talented teams, but only has spots for two teams to qualify for the State Meet. All the more reason to admire the Wayzata women's string of three straight State Meet team titles, said Miles.  The team had a great build up to the State Meet this year, said Emmons.

They seemed to be distracted earlier in the season, he said, but when it was all on the line they returned to the top of their game.  "Wayzata ran a great race," said Popp.  Their fourth and fifth runners each had notable improvements in performance.  All of which makes the "rematch" between the two teams more intriguing.

The Hasz twins appear to be the model of consistency.  The only thing that changes is which one wins.  "We are both very competitive," said Bethany, who won the girl's individual title last year, "but we're also best friends."

Megan(967) leads Bethany about midway through the race.
Photo by Jim Ferstle

Boy's Class AA results are HERE, Girl's HERE.