The Skinny: It will be a close finish between the two teams from Marshall and Worthington. They have not raced each other since September 10th, at the Marshall Invite, where Worthington beat Marshall by only nine points. Marshall has the better top four by far but their fifth runner does not always match that of the competition. Zach Matzner is a slight favorite ahead of the other runners. He has beaten both Dalton Piotter and Adam Koller this season but both were only by one second. The race is likely to come down to those three battling for the win.
The Skinny: The individual race will be very exciting with three ranked girls in Class A. Morgan Gehl headlines the field with her fourth place ranking and impressive seven-meet winning streak this season. She just ran a solid personal best of 17:55, beating her previous 18:17 which was also set earlier this season. Tenley Nelson comes in ranked eighth in Class A and has also had a great season so far. Her and Gehl have only race each other once this season, at the Mountain Lake Paul Metcalf Invitational where she lost to Gehl by 17 seconds. However, she is coming off of two good wins and a personal best of 18:22. Nelson also has a solid team behind her and is chasing the team victory so that will help push her to a big race. Grace Drietz rounds off the three individuals with her ranking of eleventh in Class A. She has lost to both Nelson and Gehl this season but is having a pretty big breakout year so it would not be surprising if she continued to close the gap between herself and those two. The team race will also be a big one between Marshall (ranked tenth in Class AA) and Luverne (ranked third in Class A), Marshall has the advantage but it would be big if Luverne made it close against a top Class AA team.