Knights prepping for state title run after winning first section championship - KEYC

LAKE CRYSTAL, Minn. (KEYC) – The Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial-Nicollet Knights cross country team is prepping for their sixth state tournament appearance after winning its first section title in school history.

Boys cross country tournaments begin Saturday. For the Knights, they’ve won their first section title in school history but they are searching for something bigger, a state championship.

It’s been a long time coming for Knights head coach Doug Burns. As head coach for the boys cross country team for 30 plus years, this is the Knights first section title in school history. He is excited about the Knights accomplishments this season.

“It’s tremendous,” said Burns when asked how he felt winning the schools first section championship. “The boys really worked hard. This is a team that improved a lot throughout the season. We’ve made it to state, we were pretty good way good back in the 90′s, these kids weren’t even born; but we had five section second place finishes so this is our sixth time at the state meet in program history and this is a team that came on like gangbusters. I’ve said over and over that they ran out of their minds that day which we were really happy about.”

Knights senior captain Christian Fells feels the hard work and excitement not only from his teammates, but coaches as well.

“It’s been really great because the coaches have been wanting this for a while because I think we had the great season last year but we didn’t quite get where we wanted to be,” Fells said. “And then to see everything come together right when it mattered was nice and cool.”

As the state competition approaches, Fells understands preparation is key for a legendary state title run.

“Our goal this year was to qualify for state and get section title,” said Fells. “It was really nice to get that, now that with this week, we’ve been working on, not as hard of workouts but lesser stuff to get us more prepared and in shape and just run he best meet we can in state.”

The meet begins at 1 p.m. at St. Olaf College.