The best cross country league in America:

Welcome to Minnesota's Lake Conference 

By Paul Schmitz for DyeStat

On the surface it might appear that the Wayzata boys and girls cross country teams are on the verge of disappointing seasons.  The boys have been rated in the top 30 in the country all season and have had as many as 14 runners run sub-17 minute 5K this fall, including the state’s top-rated Jaret Carpenter, who has run 15:16.

However, last Wednesday, the Wayzata boys only managed third place out of five teams.

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(Photos by Lance Elliott. To see more of his work , go HERE)

The Wayzata girls have finished first and sixth, respectively, at NXN the past two seasons and returned six of the top seven from 2014. Logically, Wayzata entered the season rated among the nation's best. Yet they, too, finished third out of five teams in the same conference meet.

Is it time for Wayzata to pack it in, wave a white flag, make speeches to the athletes about "next year?"  Do the Wayzata teams have to table their national aspirations for 2015?

Hardly.  Welcome to life in Minnesota's Lake Conference.

Finishing third at a Lake Conference Meet in mid-October might mean you are still one of the top three teams in Minnesota.  It might you are one of the top three teams in the entire Heartland Region.  It might even mean that you are one of the top 10 teams in the country.

For evidence, take a look at the strange scenario of the Edina boys cross country team from 2014.  The Hornets were trounced by Wayzata and Hopkins at the Lake Conference Meet last October:  Wayzata 30, Hopkins 40, Edina 65.  They finished third again at the section meet 13 days later to those same two teams and failed to qualify for the Minnesota (MSHSL)Cross Country Championships.

Those results did not crush Edina’s resolve.  Instead, the team trained through the state meet and prepared for the postseason. Edina went to NXN Heartland and finished second at Sioux Falls, S.D. to earn a trip to nationals. At NXN, the team placed ninth. (Wayzata was second).  

The Lake Conference consists of five schools:  Edina, Wayzata, Minnetonka, Eden Prairie and Hopkins are all located to the west and southwest of Minneapolis. On the boys side, three of those five teams are ranked in DyeStat’s current national Top 30.   Wayzata, coming off of its second place NXN finish, is ranked 29th currently. Ahead of them are Edina, at US#22, and Hopkins, at US#7.

Edina relies on a trio at the front -- Patrick Roos, Jack Mandersheid and Sam Thomas -- all ranked in the top nine in the latest Minnesota coaches' individual poll.  Hopkins is led by Minnesota No. 2-ranked Owen Hoeft and a pack of four -- Seth Eliason, Hunter Staack, Jack Henschel and Samuel Branson -- that will all be in the mix for all-state honors at the Minnesota state meet.  

The girls side is just as stacked as the boys.  The conference is led by perennial power Wayzata, the only non-New York team to ever win a girls NXN championship (2013).  Wayzata's neighbors have stepped up to the challenge as well. The new team to beat in the Lake conference is Edina, Dyestat’s current US#14.  Edina had a legitimate gripe last year when it did not receive an at-large bid to NXN despite finishing second in the state meet only to be later edged at NXN Heartland by Willmar by 13 points.

Edina is on a mission to not leave that NXN invite in the hands of the at-large selection committee this year and have been ranked in the top two of the Heartland Region all year.   Not to be out done is a team that has actually spent more time ranked No. 1 in the state than either Wayzata or Edina this fall: Minnetonka.  All three of these teams have spent time in the national rankings -- giving this conference an astounding six out of 10 teams that have been ranked in 2015.

One other fact that will be difficult for the rest of the girls teams in Minnesota and the Heartland Region to digest -- in the pool of 21 runners that make up the top seven at Edina, Wayzata and Minnetonka, there are only three seniors. 

The only school of the five without a nationally ranked team this year is Eden Prairie.  Far from being a pushover, EP would be a conference power if they belonged to any other alignment in the state except for the Lake. The boys team is currently ranked seventh in Minnesota and the girls team is ranked 10th.    

What is the source of the Lake Conference's success?  I ran that question by some of the coaches in the conference.  Dave Emmans, the girls coach at Wayzata, says it is a combination of history and demographics:  “I believe that when you have coaches that put in a lot of time in the off-season and stay around for a very long time, you get amazing results.  A lot of wisdom in this conference:  Jeff [Lindlief] at Eden Prairie, Mike [Harris] at Hopkins, Matt [Gabrielson] and Jamie [Kirkpatrick] at Edina, Jane [Reimer-Morgan] and Jeff [Renlund] at Minnetonka, Mark [Popp] who took over for  the legendary Bill Miles are all fantastic coaches.  They followed Hall of Fame coaches Bob Rogness, Larry Anderson, Jim Rovn, just to name a few.  Also, socio-economics play a very big role in our area.  We are blessed with a lot of resources.  We also have very big high schools and get a ton of participation.”

Mark Popp, the new boys coach at Wayzata who has taken over for legendary Bill Miles, cites the internal competition he has on his team to earn a spot on his varsity roster and the constant pressure from the other teams in the conference:  “We know that those other Lake programs are doing everything they can to get better. We need, somehow, to have more growth than them if we are to bust through Section 6AA.  If we can do that, we should be a top three team at the state meet and quite possibly the Heartland region.  That means that throughout the winter, spring, and summer our kids aren't skipping training runs; they are doing all the little things related to sleeping, eating, and strengthening that allow top performances.”   

Jeff Lindlief, the Eden Prairie boys coach, gave credit the quality of the coaches in his conference and to the communities where these schools are located: “I think the key is the fact that you have incredibly dedicated, consistent, and high-quality coaching staffs who invest A  LOT of time and effort into their programs.  Even more so, you have very driven kids and families who support the programs and are in schools/communities where success and hard work is highly valued.”  

Jane Reimer-Morgan, the Minnetonka girls coach mentioned an additional difficulty that being a member of the Lake conference and Section 6AA brings -- the need to peak for conference if you want to be competitive at the section meet, where only two teams advance to state.  Many of the top teams around the country have the luxury of working to peak in time for state, but Lake Conference teams do not. Despite the challenges, Reimer-Morgan's team uses the competition as motivation and for fun. “Our skits at CC camp generally involve some type of uniform from the other four schools, and gently making fun of them, to get our competitive desire going early season!  I have the utmost respect for each and every coach from our conference ... they do an amazing job, and I am proud to be from the Lake Conference!”

Within Minnesota high school circles, the Lake Conference and the 6AA Section are sometimes referred to as the “Conference of Death” or the “Section of Death.” 

So maybe there is hope for Wayzata yet. Third place at a mid-October meet in the Lake Conference may have felt like death. But there is still time to follow Edina's example and keep the season alive all the way to December.