Briggs wins section title; Peterson, Skillicorn also qualify for state

The Winhawks are sending three to the show. 

The Winona Senior High School boys and girls cross country teams on Thursday competed at Brooktree Golf Course in Owatonna for the second consecutive week, this time in the MSHSL Section 1AA meet. The Winhawks left with three state qualifiers — including a section champion — and saw some great efforts across the board.

Carter Briggs became the seventh runner in the storied history of the Winhawks boys program to win the section meet, breaking away from his competitors shortly after the first mile and never looking back. Briggs won in 15 minutes, 52.3 seconds — a little slower than the 15:44.9 he ran to win the Big 9 Conference meet last week, but almost 9 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Meti Omod of Rochester John Marshall. 

Briggs is the first Winona runner to win a section title since Jon-Michael Brandt won in 2009. Briggs' father, Steve Briggs, won a section title in 1987. 

Briggs, a senior, will compete in his fourth state meet at St. Olaf in Northfield, Minn., on Saturday, Nov. 2. 

He'll be joined by junior Cody Peterson, who qualified as a freshman as part of the Winhawks' team but needed to punch his ticket individually on Thursday. He continued his marvelous 2019 campaign with a fourth-place finish in 16:13.6.

On the girls side, Anni Skillicorn, a senior, ran to a 16th-place finish and grabbed one of the final individual qualifying spots. Skillicorn is returning to state for the second year in a row in only her third year out for the sport.

As a team the boys finished in third out of 17 — a mere nine points out of second and a state qualifying spot. Zach Reuter ran well to finish in 14th in 16:45.2, missing an individual qualifying position by two spots and less than 10 seconds. Jonas Trombetta and Ryan Meyer crossed the line in 40th and 42nd respectively rounding out the scoring with solid performances. By many accounts the boys really overachieved in a wonderful way this season after losing six varsity runners from last year. Their expectation to be successful led them to train and compete with that expectation in mind. 

The girls were ninth out of 17. Emily Carrie (28th) and Carol Miller (47th) had strong performances to cap off their high school careers. Kaia Hamilton finished in 62nd and Colleen Halleck was 70th. The seniors on the girls team have traveled many miles together and leave a legacy of hard, smart work punctuated by a lot of joy and fun.