Northfield Game of the Week: Raider Runners Face Early Test

After finishing well out of contention a year ago, the head to the Irish Invitational on Friday in Rosemount for a key early season meet.

The Northfield boys ran 14th at last year's 18-team meet, led by then-junior Sam Fox's 34th-place finish.

The Raider girls were 10th out of 14 teams a year ago, led my Maria Olson's 29th-place finish as a sophomore.

A list of participating teams for this year's race was not available, but traditionally the meet attracts some of the top boys and girls teams from the Twin Cities area as well as a handful of quality teams from across the state.

Last year's competition for the girls title was extremely close, with River Falls and Minnetonka both scoring 69 points—River Falls won the tie-breaker based on better finish of its sixth runner—and Prior Lake not far behind with 71.

Host Rosemount won last year's boys meet by a much more comfortable margin. The Irish's 54 points was 21 better than White Bear Lake's 75.