Aubrey Woodwick was the first BEA girl to finish the course at the Section 2A cross country meet held at Riverside Town & Country Club on Oct. 29.

The Blue Earth Area girls cross country team raced to their best finish in the Section 2A meet since 2012 with an 11th place finish out of 17 teams competing at Riverside Town & Country Club outside of Blue Earth.

Lester Prairie finished in first place with 103 points and St. James Area finished second with 109 points. Those two teams advanced to the State meet which was held Nov. 6

BEA finished with 239 points.

Aubrey Woodwick led the girls’ efforts with a time of 22:52 to finish in 25th place overall. It was the first sub 23-minute mark for the seventh grader who had the second-best time of all seventh grade girls competing at the meet.

Senior Calli Ferguson matched her personal best time of 23:22 to finish 34th. Her time was more than two minutes faster than last year.

Sydney Eitzmann, another seventh grader, finished in the top half of the field with a time of 24:35, which was good for 52nd place.

The last of BEA’s three young runners, eighth grader Lola Lundquist, finished 63rd with a time of 25:00.

Senior Aubrey Hueper recorded a personal-best in her final cross country race with a time of 25:58 to nab 72nd place.

Fellow senior Lauren Bleess also saved her best for last. Her time of 26:02 was the fastest of her career and put her in 73rd place.

Elizabeth Jacobson ran to a 79th-place finish in her final high school cross country meet with a time of 26:14, just missing a personal record and knocking two minutes off her time from last year’s Section meet.

The boys had a 14th place finish with 367 points. St. James Area claimed the top spot on the podium with 39 points. Mankato Loyola/Cleveland also earned a trip to the State meet with 74 points to finish in second place.

Angel Martinez was the first Buc to cross the finish line for BEA. His time of 19:28 was good for 43rd place.

Devin Haase was 74th with a time of 21:08.

Brady Lorenz ran a personal-best time of 21:51 to finish 84th.

Luca Bucksch finished 86th with a personal-best time of 22:09.

Aiden Donahue had a personal-best time of 22:59 to finish in 95th place.

Seth Mathews recorded the fastest time of his career and crossed the finish line in 23:30 to finish 98th.

Marcus Eckles continued the string of personal-best times for the BEA boys. He finished 99th with a time of 23:38.

While the girls’ team had four seniors, Bleess, Ferguson, Hueper and Jacobson wrapping up their cross country careers, the boys team did not have any seniors on their team.

Both squads should have a nice nucleus of young, but experienced runners returning to compete for the Buccaneers next fall.