Chargers Cross Country

1989 Cross Country team

Back Row: Kevin Carlin and Scott Sunblad
Standing: David Wilde, Shawn Webber, N. Ylitalo, Kevin Roberts, Shane Weber, D. Lundeen
Seated: Char Reinke, Kevin Borg, Melinda Yerka
Front Row: Karl Hillstrom, Jamie Jorgenson, and Adam Kleiwer

---

The first Cross Country (CC) program at D-C started during the fall of 1972, the same year that the Dassel and Cokato High Schools consolidated. The first CC program consisted of male athletes that were looking to stay in shape for their other sports. It is not known the exact reason as to why the CC program ended in 1976; one possibility is that there was not enough participation in the sport.

Then, in 1987, Mike Lhotka brought back the CC program to D-C. He coached the CC team from 1987 to 2008. Lhotka stated that "to start the CC program in 1987, I recruited athletes from other sports that were in their off-season like track." Unlike the first team in 1972, this team included both boys and girls, however, Lhotka had more difficulty starting the girls' CC program. He believes that this could have been because the girls' fall swimming program conflicted with CC. This meant that for the first couple of years D-C did not have a full girls' team. Justine Anderson, Char Reinke, and Melinda Yerka were the first girls to run for D-C.
​
​Without a full team, the girls competed individually. During Lhotka's time as coach, he had multiple girls' place as All Conference Athletes at the Wright County Championship meet; this included Char Reinke, Rochelle Barberg, Jennah Nelson and Ericka Norgren. Caitlin Keskey was D-C's first girl CC runner to go to state in 2009.

Char Reinke, 1988

Since the beginning of the girls' CC program, there have been a total of three different race distances that the girls have run. Starting in 1987, the girls' D-C runners ran 2 miles. Then, at somepoint between 1992 and 2005 the girls distance switch from 2 miles to 4000 meters (2.5 miles). Today, girls and boys are both running the same distance of 5000 meters (3.1 miles).

Alison Kern and Molly Sundt, 1996

Back to Sports