About 6 miles worth of Nordic skiing came down to this: Eden Prairie's Benon Brattebo and fellow senior Ben Lewis of Blaine, gutting out the final few strides of the freestyle pursuit.
Friends and club skiing teammates with Loppet Nordic Racing during the club season, Brattebo and Lewis were two dogs in search of the same bone.
They both recorded a time of 26 minutes, 00.9 seconds. The photo finish at Giants Ridge in Biwabik, Minn., in mid-February revealed Brattebo won.
He is the Star Tribune's 2022-23 Boys Nordic Skier of the Year.
Brattebo and Lewis, along with third-place finisher Andrew DeFor, a junior from Edina, made a pact before the Nordic state championship race.
"We all said that we wanted to win, but if not ourselves, we hope it's one of the other two," said Brattebo, who said tension among racers lacks because in Nordic, "it's pretty much the skier against the course."