Card girls' cross country: Piepenburg first, Cards second at DL Invite

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No. 2 ranked Jamie Piepenburg was on fire last Thursday as she ran to her second straight first place finish as she led the Cardinal girls’ cross country team to second at the Detroit Lakes Invitational.

The Cardinal junior outdistanced second place Haylie Zenner of Fergus Falls by more than a full minute, clocking in with a time of 14:40.81.

“Jamie ran 50 seconds faster than a year ago and probably very close to a course record,” said Cardinal head coach Mark Nelsen. “This was one of our better team performances at DL in recent years. We had five runners in the top 15, while Moorhead captured six of the top 10 positions. This was the difference in the team competition.”

Sophomore Shelby Iverson was the second finisher for Alexandria as she clocked in at 17:02.59 for a sixth place finish.

“Shelby ran more than a minute and a half faster than last year, running an excellent race,” said the Card coach.

Freshman Karly Betterman placed 12th in 17:23.22, junior Kaci McCoy 13th in 17:33.22, freshman Juliana Sieling was 15th in 17:49.10, freshman Emily Thul was 19th in 17:57.00, senior Tess Boucher 20th in 17:57.63 and junior Brianna Gaugert 22nd in 18:00.36.

“We are excited that we had three freshmen running in their third 4K race, competing on our varsity and gaining some great experience,” said Nelsen. “Karly Betterman, Julia Sieling and Emily Thul all had their personal bests and have bright futures.

“Kaci had a great race, dropping 25 seconds off the Brainerd race and running very strong over the second half of a very challenging course.”

Runners of the meet were Betterman, McCoy and Thul.

Tags: alexandria sports, home team, cross country, sports, cardinals, girls