Jim Bassett stood with a pair of fellow coaches on the Brooktree Golf Course in Owatonna and offered the following assessment of boys running in Big Nine country:.

Wednesday, October 20, 1999

Jim Bassett stood with a pair of fellow coaches on the Brooktree Golf Course in Owatonna and offered the following assessment of boys running in Big Nine country:

"The Big Nine is as strong as it has been in 10 years," said the Mankato West coach.

Bassett relayed the story of 1992, when Winona edged West and Mayo for the conference’s cross country title.

Weeks later, Winona finished sixth in state behind second-place Mayo and fourth-place West.

While Winona proved why it was the clear favorite for the Big Nine girls team title on Tuesday – winning with five top 12 finishes – the boys race was as wide open as that 1992 race.

Three state-ranked teams – West, Owatonna and Winona – hunted for the conference title and no one knew what to expect.

"The Big Nine is such a competitive conference," Bassett said. "When you get all of us together, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Take last year, John Marshall won it. I figured we should have won it, but we had a horrible day."

In the end, Owatonna, led by three-time individual champ Ted Gustafson, came out on top.

As proof of the conference’s unpredictability, Faribault snuck in ahead of Winona.

For the fledgling Austin boys and girls teams, conference titles were out of reach.

But after an incomplete in last year’s race, the Austin girls put together a team score as the required five girls finished the race.

Senior Sara Turvey led the Packers with a 16th place finish.

"That’s the highest finish from an Austin runner in a long time," Coach Tony Einertson said. "She ran a tough and extremely smart race. We talked about her going out and running with the leaders and she did that."

Meanwhile, the boys shaved 11 points off last season’s score and beat Century in the process.

"It’s an improvement," said Einertson, who expects this boys team to get even better in coming years.

"We’re in a tough conference, one of the toughest in the state," he said, "and if you look at our roster it’s sophomore, sophomore, sophomore … We’re going to get better. I’ve just got to convince the kids of that."

Lee Nordby led Austin’s parade of sophomores; he finished in 32nd.

Matt Adwell, a junior and the lone non-sophomore to race for Austin, finished 58th.

"He’s easily 20 places better than he ran today," Einertson said. "He had a tough race."

It’s no wonder, the weather in Owatonna was far from race worthy.

"It’s not good," Turvey said. "It’s way too cold.

"But you warm up once you get going."