Humboldt’s Orr rides wave of momentum
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Just weeks after securing a silver medal at state cross country, Humboldt’s Quinton Orr added another top finish to his resume.
Orr, a sophomore, placed third at the Nike Cross Regionals Heartland event at the Yankton Trail Park.
Last year, Orr’s teammate — Bryce Gidel — captured the “Rising Stars” race, which is open to freshman and sophomore runners. Orr had a time of 16:24, with Gabe Smit from Minnesota winning the race in 16:15.
“The competition is a lot of fun to run against,” Orr said. “Just like state, there’s a lot of really good runners that are better than you. That’s always so fun to run in a big meet like that.”
Orr went 16:10 at Lakeside Golf Course inside Kennedy Park at state, but the conditions here were vastly different for the event.
“The race went really well, it was just super cold with a feel-like temperature of 11 and 16 mile-per-hour winds,” Orr said. “The course is pretty open too, so that was a challenge, but everyone had to run against it. I got out really fast in the first 800 and had some people to block the wind the first mile.
“I just tried to hammer out my second mile. The wind was really tough the last mile, but I just held on as best as I could.”
Gidel compete at the event once more, this time in the open division. The Humboldt junior, who earned her second consecutive Top-10 finish at state last month, was 72nd overall in 20:07.
St. Edmond senior Abby Landwehr was 236th overall out of 937 runners in the open race. She had a time of 21:09.7, while Jed Tracy was 802nd out of 1,311 in 19:37 in the boys open event. Tracy is a Gael junior.
“I was super pumped to have this experience my final year because I got to see tons of runners from all over the Midwest that love the same thing I do,” said Landwehr, who will run at Loras College in the fall. “I was out there to have fun. It’s the only race we get all year where there aren’t high expectations to do well for yourself and your team.
“I also got to see some of my friends from different states that I had met at cross country camps. It was a blast.”
Trey Engen, an Algona senior, was 205th overall in the open boys race in 17:00.
Runners represented Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.