News

Wednesday, October 27
Jefferson Barracks Park (533 Bagby Road, St. Louis, MO 63125)

Race Results: Junior Varsity (1st of 6) | Freshmen (1st of 6)
Team Split Sheet: Here
Race Photographs: Junior Varsity | Freshmen

Bidding goodbye to another successful season of racing at the scenic Jefferson Barracks Park, we drove home with full stomachs and satiated spirits. A huge thank you to all the families who supported the "Findley Feast" at the end of the night; it was a great way to conclude the season for our JV and C teams.

Freshmen: Throughout the season, the freshmen demonstrated tremendous growth and spirit. A season that began with a team win through the corn fields in O'Fallon ended with another win at Jefferson Barracks. A very impressive freshman from Parkway West won the individual race, but we took the next 6 finishers, including a blanket finish by 5 freshmen within 2.4 seconds of one another. This pack showed tremendous racing savvy, overcoming an early-race deficit at the hands of runners from rival schools by remaining patient and rising throughout the race. In addition to our front 6, 8 more freshmen finished in the top 25 medals. Because the race winner was part of a team that did not have enough finishers for a team score, the freshmen actually registered a perfect score of 15 points - a rare and special feat.

Junior Varsity: In their final race of the season, the JV squad completed a remarkable season. Taking the top 12 finishing spots, JV matched the freshmen's perfect score of 15 with one of their own. Will Riggan won his first race in a very nice time of 17:14. A sextet of seniors ran PRs at Findley, including Flynn O'Connell, Alex Mittendorf, Tad Gray, Peter James, Joseph Nesser, and Tag Arens. Senior Luke Pierson had his finest race of the season, and a few underclassmen found PR races as well: Lucas Strohmeyer (going under 19 minutes for the first time), Leo Fitzmaurice, and Fin Roseberry.

BY THE NUMBERS: JV & C

Because of variances in courses and conditions, XC is a sport where non-head-to-head comparisons are sometimes dicey. Despite that, data does tell a representative story. According to the MoMileSplit team rankings:

• Filtering out every school's first seven runners, our 8-14 runners (our "JV") constitute the top-ranked JV team in the State. Moving down our depth chart even further, the disparities grow greater. Our JV-2 (15-21) and JV-3 (22-28) teams each earn perfect team scores when matched up against like-ranked runners on depth charts from all other teams around Missouri.
• Data for our freshmen team rank them #3 in the entire State, only behind a strong freshmen team from Rockhurst and a razor-thin margin from the frosh from Rock Bridge. If these three teams lined up to race head-to-head tomorrow, there's no reason to think we couldn't compete to come out on top (we beat Rock Bridge head-to-head at Parkway West, but lost to Rockhurst at FPXC). When given the chance to compete as a freshman team, our boys only had one finish outside of the top spot - a fourth place finish back at FPXC. There's no doubt in our minds that, given another chance to race the squads from Rockhurst, Festus, or Eureka again, we could give them all a run for their money. But alas, that chance will have to play out in coming seasons. For now, they have demonstrated themselves part of another firm foundation of SLUH Cross Country for the years to come.

The depth of our team reflects in part the tone and leadership of our upperclassmen. So many of our non-top seven runners would be good varsity runners at most schools around the area. It's a proud moment for the coaches to see guys up and down our roster pushing each other to be better, all with a healthy and respectful spirit of competition and team-first attitudes. We firmly believe that we would not achieve the varsity results we do if it were not for the daily competition and camaraderie that marks our program from top to bottom.

Though many seniors will leave us, the potential is clearly there for more great seasons ahead. But as always, potential is worth only as much as the ink that it's printed on a piece of paper. The hard work put in over the months ahead will begin to tell the story of 2022 SLUH Cross Country.