This morning, the Duluth East Boys and Girl’s cross country teams hopped on a bus with their tickets punched to the Minnesota State Cross Country Championship.

It marks the first time since 2015 that both teams will be in attendance.

The girls team is ranked second in the state. while the boys are unranked, but beat #10 Blaine to qualify.

“We have a lot of kids who did a lot of work,” said Dave Wicker, Duluth East Head Coach. “They did a lot of Summer running and we just had a very good group of kids. Cross country is probably the one sport where everybody gets to participate and if you put in the work, everybody is going to improve.”

Duluth East, Hibbing, Proctor, Cloquet, Grand Rapids and more will have runners at Les Bolstad Golf Course Saturday, where the state meet will be held for the first time in nearly 30 years.

The Duluth boys run at 10 a.m. and the girls run at 10:45 a.m.