It was a commanding victory for Wayzata senior Maddie Gullickson as she finished in 16 minutes, 54.3 seconds Saturday afternoon at the Class 3A girls state cross country championship on the University of Minnesota campus.

The result never seemed to be in question as Gullickson sprinted across the finish line 37.1 seconds before Forest Lake’s Anna VanAcker, who came in second. Gullickson unleashed her pent-up joy as she completed the race, smiling with her arms raised over her head.

Forest Lake’s Anna VanAcker runs during the Class 3A girls cross country race of the State Tournament at Les Bolstad Golf Course in Minneapolis, Saturday, Nov. 01, 2025. (Craig Lassig / Special to the Pioneer Press)

Burnsville’s Carley LaMotte finished in third, eight seconds back of VanAcker, while Mounds View’s Linnea Ousdigian placed sixth.

Gullickson said the emotion came not only from winning the state championship but from beating a benchmark she set for herself.

“My big goal this season was to break 17 [minutes], so that was so cool to be able to do it here,” Gullickson said.
”Just knowing how much adversity I’ve faced in the work that I’ve put in the season comes to show in moments like this.”

But just like a cross-country course, the road to this achievement was an uphill battle with challenging twists and turns. Gullickson had to battle through adversity stemming from her previous track campaign.

Gullickson said she had to push through a stress fracture in her foot and a recent nagging illness.

“I raced with it for like, half the track season, and then we finally went and got it checked out,” Gullickson said. “I’ve been facing a sickness the past few weeks, so I’ve been on the come up from that.

Even with the happiness that overcomes one when winning a state championship, Gullickson was quick to praise her teammates when asked about her accomplishment.

“Yeah, it’s awesome, I mean, I’ve won state championships in track, but just like coming out here for cross is just a whole other thing because I have my whole team here with me,” Gullickson said. “I’m not just racing for my success, but I’m racing for my team’s success.”

Her motivation comes from striving for team success, but also in response to a personal setback a season ago.

Gullickson finished as runner-up to then-Forest Lake senior and now Gophers freshman Norah Hushagen last year. She said coming up short motivated her heading into her senior campaign.

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything, because it just motivated me even more this year,” Gullickson said. “It just makes the success so much more … knowing that I put in so much work to get here.”

The North Carolina State commit also spearheaded the Trojans’ fourth straight team title.

Class 2A

Simley freshman Annaleigh Schwab finished in second in the individual race with a time of 18 minutes, 22 seconds – 19 seconds behind St. Francis senior Keira Friedrich. Minneapolis Southwest won the team title.

Class A

St. John’s Prep’s Margaret Duffy won the girls championship. Nova Classical freshman Isabel Pass finished fourth.

Related Articles

Class 2A cross country: Como Park sweeps individual, team boys titles

3A boys cross country: Minnetonka’s Fries sets new record

Check out the Minnesota high school state football brackets for all seven classes

High School Football: St. Thomas Academy, Hill-Murray punch tickets to state

Football: Woodbury drops shootout against Moorhead in section final

Como Park was ranked fifth in its class heading into Saturday’s Class 2A boys state meet. Cougars junior Charlie Loth was ranked seventh.

But the meets aren’t run on paper.

What more appropriate way for a first-ever St. Paul Public School boys cross country team title to occur than from an underdog role?

A dream performance at the right time on the biggest stage put the Cougars atop the podium at Les Bolstad Golf Course.

Loth raced to an individual crown, the first in program history. The junior finished in 15 minutes, 31.1 seconds – three ticks clear of Orono senior Gabe Hallen.

Loth was in a lead pack of about four runners that pulled away from the field. That group ran together until Loth and Kasson-Mantorville’s David Obst took off to set up what appeared to be a two-man finish.

But as they descended down the final hill, Loth started to pull away and Obst took a tumble, allowing Loth to cruise to the championship. Obst finished fourth.

“Everyone was so tired,” Loth told reporters. “I was exhausted, too. But I wasn’t going to be more tired than anyone else. I had to go for it.”

Como Park senior Ben Clark finished in ninth, while junior Arthur Anderson placed 11th. Neither Clark nor Anderson even received votes in the coaches’ poll, which ranks the class’ top 12 individuals.

“When we were on the starting line, you could tell the (Cougars) were ready to go,” Loth told reporters. “This is incredible. I didn’t think something like this was possible.”

Hazel Small and Logan Small rounded out the Cougars’ top five, which finished with a team score of 75 – 14 points clear of second-place Perham, the state’s top-ranked team.

Loth is just the fourth-ever St. Paul public school individual boys cross country state champion, and first since Highland Park’s Oliver Paleen won the Class 2A crown in 2019.

Class A

Erik Semling from Cotter Hope won the boys individual title.

Related Articles

Girls state cross country: Wayzata’s Gullickson wins 3A title, Forest Lake’s VanAcker second

3A boys cross country: Minnetonka’s Fries sets new record

Check out the Minnesota high school state football brackets for all seven classes

High School Football: St. Thomas Academy, Hill-Murray punch tickets to state

Football: Woodbury drops shootout against Moorhead in section final

Sean Fries shattered the state championship record Saturday afternoon on the Lee Bolstad course, finishing at 14 minutes, 50.6 seconds, claiming the title.

Fries set out to do something “special” in his senior season and accomplished his goal and then some. The Minnetonka native crossed the finish line 33.9 seconds before runner-up Owen Stuwe of Shakopee.

Rosemount’s Channing Goodwin came in fifth, while Two Rivers’ Max Molinaro was sixth.

Blaine won the team title, powered by a fourth-place finish from David Meberg. Rosemount finished third as a team.

In 2024, Fries came in second to Roseville Area senior and now North Carolina freshman Robert Mechura. But one year later, he conquered the competition and broke Mechura’s state record of 15 minutes, 3.7 seconds.

“Obviously, that’s an honor to have,” Fries said about being the new record holder. “Lots of talent that’s come from Minnesota. So I’m very happy to be able to continue that legacy and hopefully, it just continues, as Minnesota keeps on producing more.”

Fries said his race strategy was straightforward, and getting out to a strong start was a big part. He finished the first mile with a 12.3-second lead over Stuwe and furthered his advantage to 25.8 seconds after mile two.

A driving factor in his performance came from his experience with the course and his loss to Mechura last season.

“You can always use that to your advantage,” Fries said about having raced the Les Bolstad course before. “So that definitely helps just get every bit of experience you can.”

Experience that Fries had been compiling since eighth grade, since he first raced in the state meet for the Skippers.

“Five years of experience in the state meet really helps and gets you familiar with what everything will be like, what the day will be like, and kind of be able to better prepare yourself mentally for that,” Fries said.

Fries made his dream come true when he committed to Stanford on July 12. But when he started running cross country in middle school, winning a state championship did not cross his mind as a goal.

“I think every little kid in sports usually has pretty lofty goals,” Fries said when asked if a state title was a dream since the beginning. “I didn’t think that I would be able to do it, but I think it’s obviously something that everyone would want to do. But yeah, I guess I probably didn’t have it in my mind at the time.”

Related Articles

Girls state cross country: Wayzata’s Gullickson wins 3A title, Forest Lake’s VanAcker second

Class 2A cross country: Como Park sweeps individual, team boys titles

Check out the Minnesota high school state football brackets for all seven classes

High School Football: St. Thomas Academy, Hill-Murray punch tickets to state

Football: Woodbury drops shootout against Moorhead in section final

Michigan State seemed to represent a great hangover cure for the Gophers on Saturday.

Minnesota was able to sleep off the awful 41-3 loss at Iowa last week and welcomed a struggling Spartans squad to Huntington Bank Stadium. At 0-5, the Big Ten basement dweller had the worst scoring defense in the conference, a leaky offensive line and felt the need to make a starting quarterback change.

The elixir was working just enough as the Gophers led 10-0 at the half, but a pounding headache returned in the second half. The Spartans scored 17 unanswered points to take a 17-10 lead, yet in a two-minute drill, Minnesota put together a 65-yard drive to tie the game on a Drake Lindsey 1-yard run with 29 seconds left to force overtime.

Lindsey did it again in overtime with a naked bootleg run on third and goal from 3 yards out for a touchdown and Minnesota escaped with a 23-20 win.

With the narrow win, Minnesota (6-3, 4-2 Big Ten) reached bowl eligibility, while Michigan State (3-6, 0-6) lost after taking 20-17 lead with 35-yard field goal to start the overtime session.

The Spartans was allowing 32 points per game, but Minnesota managed to score roughly half that in regulation. Michigan State’s defense — led by former U coordinator Joe Rossi — stifled his former team for most of four quarters.

The Gophers’ first-half lead was curtailed, in part, to two underwhelming red-zone trips — a 30-yard field goal and missed 33-yard field goal just before the break.

Michigan State stepped through that opening with a 71-yard touchdown pass to Rodney Bullard on the opening drive of the second half. Gophers defensive backs Aidan Gousby and Kerry Brown botched coverage and tackling to allow the explosive play.

As Minnesota’s offense remained stuck, Michigan State tied the game 10-10 early in the fourth quarter. But the Spartans missed a 23-yard field goal with five minutes left in the game.

A bigger play from the Spartans offense came when Elijah Tau-Tolliver made multiple Gophers miss and broke off an 85-yard run and the Spartans punched it in two plays later.

Michigan State’s offensive line came into the game as one of the most porous in the Big Ten and Minnesota cashed in with six first half sacks. Minnesota got only one in the second half.

The Spartans made a surprising change at quarterback as redshirt freshman Alessio Milivojevic replaced junior Aidan Chiles. In his first career start, Milivojevic spent the first half running for his life and scraping himself off the turf.

The Gophers offense continued to struggle on its opening drive; they went three-and-out and settled another punt. Against FBS competition this season, Minnesota has a total seven punts, one field goal and zero touchdowns.

The U wasn’t much better on its second drive, another punt, but got going with a 49-yard cutback run from Fame Ijeboi. It was the second-longest run of the season behind Darius Taylor’s 71-yarder against Nebraska.

Filling in for injured Taylor, Ijeboi capped the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run to take a 7-0 lead.

After that, the Gophers put together their longest drive of the half, a 10-play, 51-yarder, but they have to settle for a 30-yard field goal from Brady Denaburg.

At the end of the half, Minnesota had a nine-play, 60-yard drive, with a 35-yard completion from Lindsey to Javon Tracy, but that drive also stalls in the red zone. The failed opportunity was exacerbated by Denaburg missing a 33-yard field goal wide right.

Related Articles

Gophers to be without running back Darius Taylor vs. Michigan State

Frustrated by stagnation, Mark Coyle puts more money into Gophers men’s basketball

Gophers football vs. Michigan St.: Keys to game, how to watch, who has edge

Gophers football: Deven Eastern, Jalen Logan-Redding gutting out final year

Former Gophers assistant Joe Rossi struggling with Michigan State