The Big Lake boys cross country team is looking strong in the early season.

Even though they lost their top runner Jack Leuer to graduation, the team has depth this season

“Jack was one of the best runners we’ve ever had,” says Coach Todd Trutna. “But I think there’s a chance we can still go to state with the boys. That would be six years in a row. It would be nice to keep that streak going.”

It looks like senior Gavin Flavin is the top runner so far with senior Trent Erickson right behind.

“They’ll probably lead us,” says Coach Trutna. “After that is a cluster of three runners: Eli Henning, Theo Johnson and Jack Schmidt.”

They’ll likely be the next three  scorers. The team also has Max Baron and Jordan Domka coming off a pretty good track season.

It’s a different story for the girls team, which is dominated by younger runners. The team lost its top senior, Campbell Slattery to graduation. This year, Brynn Scheer is the only senior on the squad.

“She does a great job as captain of the girls,” says Coach Trutna.

But after Scheer, the rest of the varsity team mostly ninth graders. There are no 11th or 10th graders.

“In previous years we couldn’t get junior high girls to come out for the team,” says Trutna. “Now we have six seventh graders and five eighth graders.”

So the girls varsity team will be Scheer and a list of mostly ninth grade runners.

Some of those ninth graders have varsity experience. Hazel Goldseth and Elsie Jagusch both ran varsity as eighth graders and  Aubrey Judge ran as a seventh grader last season. And Trutna says a new runner, Shay France is one to watch.

“She played soccer before,” he says. “She’s inexperienced but she could be our number one runner.”

It looks like the girls team has a bright future. How they do this season is still a question.

The Hornets held a time trial Saturday to see how well all the runners do. They competed at Princeton Thursday, results next week.