MARSHALL — A Monday heat advisory didn’t prevent the Marshall cross country teams from hosting their season opener at Marshall Golf Club this week. After the Marshall Invitational was postponed from its originally scheduled start of Monday afternoon, the Marshall girls and boys cross country teams each took home a victory to open their seasons on Tuesday morning.

“We were really glad that we were able to get the meet in. It was really iffy yesterday,” Marshall boys head coach Brian Leibfried said, adding that he was thankful to the Marshall Golf Club for being accommodating with the postponement. “[Our team’s] effort was great, we’re really pleased with where our training’s been and with our pack is together. I think our spread today from one through four was about a minute and seven seconds, so that’s certainly we’re going to keep looking at and keep looking to go with.”

On the boys side, Marshall finished with 26 points to win the five-team field. They were followed by Luverne with 36 points, Murray County Central/Fulda with 78 points and Southwest Minnesota Christian/Edgerton and Worthington with 102 and 129 respectively.

On the girls side, the Tigers recorded 17 points to beat out Worthington’s 44. No other team fielded a full team score. 

Katelyn Leibfried won the girls side of the meet. The Marshall sophomore stepped up her game in the season opener despite feeling mildly under the weather, Marshall girls head coach Marie Sample said. Leibfried ran a time of 19:56.4, beating out runner-up Summer Molberg of Worthington my 38 seconds.

“Our main focus was just to try to stick together, pack up and do it for each other,” Leibfried said. “Just try to focus on using energy with the pack because that’s a big thing to help you keep going.”

After the team lost a pair of graduating seniors and another pair of runners opting out of the season following last year’s state championship run, Leibfried becomes one of the team’s veterans on a roster that includes just one senior and no juniors. She said that last year’s seniors showed the younger runners how to work together and become a family and that she’s looking to continue that tradition.

“[Katelyn Leibfried] been really encouraging and kind of staying and waiting for them a little bit, helping that pack form and grow,” Sample said. “Today for her to be able to go and just race and rip one, I was really proud of her for that.”

For the first half of the 5-kilometer race, Leibfried was packed up with teammates Oakley Schneekloth and Landrey Graven, both freshmen. Schneekloth and Graven finished third and fourth overall in the meet at 20:43.8 and 20:45.0 respectively. 

Freshman Claire Kruse and eighth grader Ayanna Flowers rounded out the Tiger scorers, placing 10th and 11th in the field of 27 finishers. Kruse put together a time of 23:05.7 while Flowers crossed the finish line at 23:11.7.

Laiken Farris was MCC/Fulda’s top finisher in the meet at 20:59.0 while Holland Vogel also placed 12th at 23:35.0.

In the boys race, Luverne took the top individual slot with Owen Janidzeski’s 16:05.1. From there, however, Marshall claimed each of the next four places to take control of the meet.

“Any day could be anyone else’s day. When it’s your day, you’ve got to go and pick each other up,” coach Leibfried said of his team’s top pack. “That’s what I’m looking forward to this season with our depth and trying to see who comes on each meet.”

Josh Leibfried was the Tigers’ top dog on the day with a time of 16:42.5. Right behind him, Keagen Anderson and Landon Marthaler finished at 16:50.7 and 16:52.5 respectively while Kohen Holcomb placed fifth at 16:58.5.

“We performed well as a group,” Anderson said. “It was me and Cohen ran together, Josh ahead and Landon too. Just finishing in my mind, I was like, ‘I’ve got to catch Landon on this downhill. I passed him and it felt good.

Marshall was also without one of its top runners in Sam Deutz on the day due to injury. Still, the team showed that it has the depth to continue to compete.

Each of the Tigers’ top four male finishers was a senior on the day after they brought back much of the group that went to last year’s state meet, finishing third overall in Class AA.

“We’re all seasoned. We know we’ve got goals this year just to win with this group of guys. We can make a lot of things happen,” Anderson said.

Ethan Bly crossed the line 12th overall to finish as the Tigers’ No. 5 scorer on the day. He finished with a time of 17:49.8.

MCC/Fulda had a pair of top-10 finishers on the day. Evan Baumgardner placed seventh at 17:06.3 while Matthew Stapek placed ninth at 17:22.5. 

Marshall will head across the state’s western border for its next meet on Sept. 6. The Marshall boys and girls cross country teams will compete at the Augustana meet in Sioux Falls with the meet scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.