News
Team Champs at Big River Inv.
Race Results: Varsity (1st of 16) | Junior Varsity 1 (2nd of 21) | Junior Varsity 2 (2nd of 6)
Team Split Sheet: Here
Race Photographs: Varsity | Junior Varsity - 1 | Junior Varsity - 2
Thanks to all those who braved the Great Buder Park Backup of 2021! Despite a lengthy departure from the meet at the hands of a tremendous traffic jam, it was another good day for the program at Buder Park. (I do want to assure everyone that Nicholas Purschke is doing okay; he even wanted to be at practice on Saturday morning!)
To start the day, we ran our top varsity team, and they demonstrated continued signs of sharpening and progression. The intermediate result on Friday was a team championship, including a number of PRs and a one-point victory over our rival Rock Bridge (who did not run their two top runners). Sean Kellogg joined elite company by becoming our first sub-16:00 5k runner since Noah Scott and Lucas Rackers in 2019. His time of 15:51 placed him third overall. Joining Sean in the top 10 were Baker Pashea (5th, 16:11) and Joe LaBarge (7th, 16:14). Justin Glass was our fourth & final medalist in 11th place (16:26), and Grant Brawley secured our team score with a 16th place finish. As a stepping stone, there was a lot to like from this race that leaves us hopeful that our best races are still ahead.
In each of the two JV races, there were a flood of PRs and great races that are again too many to list here. Be sure to check the team split sheet! Team-wise, we were second behind Webster Groves in each race, although it should be noted that they ran their whole program at Buder Park and only five ran in the varsity race. A few of our many highlights: Mason Scargall going toe-to-toe with a top-notch runner from Hillsboro and finishing in 2nd place in a new PR of 16:50; five more sub 18-runners in Charlie Gray, Brendan Jones, Gus Talleur, Noah Evers, and Cody Cox (putting us at a grand total of 23 runners under 18 minutes!); a gutsy race and huge PR for Joe Stoeckel; more big PRs for juniors Spencer Johnson & Connor Coolbaugh; four more sub-20:00 freshmen in Joe Stoeckel, Alex Bendaña, Clark Davis, and Rowan Lemp; and minute-plus PRs for Cooper Capdeboscq, Garrett Franks, Charlie Dougherty, Josh Lima-Lopez, Micah Doherty, and Madhavan Anbukumar. Yet again, it was a tremendous day of racing and a proud day for the SLUH XC program. It has been quite a special year.