SLUH lives to run another day! With an impressive first place performance at the Class 5 District 2 XC meet, the team qualified for the state meet, marking the 28th consecutive time in SLUH XC history that the program has qualified for state.

The course at Sullivan was not a fast course but was very technically challenging. The course quickly narrowed at the beginning with a tight 180-degree turn within the first 60 meters, forcing the racers to get out quickly and swing wide around the turn in order to get in a comfortable position. Racers had to navigate tight turns especially on the back end of the race and had to be cautious of their footing because of the mud caused by the week’s rains. Despite these conditions, SLUH was unfazed.

“I knew that it was going to be a slower course and a bit messy, but I was not particularly concerned,” said senior Daniel Hogan. “We train in this weather, and we work hard and stay tough despite the conditions. I think that this is what makes us such a good XC team.”

With the bang of the start gun, SLUH racers bolted from the line to get in a strong position early, and through the first kilometer, almost all of the XC bills were packed up in the front.

“Our pack did a great job of getting out front early and controlling the race from the start,” said junior Baker Pashea. “It was very exciting to be surrounded by so many white jerseys, and a huge confidence boost.”

“In the week leading up to the race, we were all a bit worried about only two teams allowed to make it to state. We are in a really strong district,” said senior Aidan Byrne. “But when I saw a huge pack of almost all of our guys right up front about a mile, I knew that we were going to do really well.”

The race began to string out in the middle mile, and with a strong move by Marquette’s Ethan Koop, the race really became a race for second. Hogan, along with four other runners from Lafayette and Marquette, were all in contention for second in the final 500 meters.

“They had been pulling me along the entire race. My strategy was to stay behind them most of the race,” said Hogan. “But when the Lafayette runner made his move, I kind of realized that I don’t need to stay behind these guys the entire time, and so I tried to move up. I was really glad that I was aggressive, especially in that last part of the race.”

Hogan fell short to three out of the four racers in this pack, but beat Marquette’s Connor Del Carmen, who beat Hogan earlier this season. Hogan has now beaten all of Marquette’s top seven runners.

“It definitely is reassuring to know that I am in the mix with all of those guys. We haven’t had a lot of big meets where we compete against teams from across the state, so it is helpful to have at least this,” said Hogan. “I know two of them were all-Staters, so it definitely gives me confidence going into state.”

Yet, the race was really won for SLUH in the pack five places back from Hogan. Led by juniors Grant Brawley (9th) and Baker Pashea (10th) and followed by seniors Ryan Kramer (11th) and Hayden Zenor (12th), the pack of four continued to push the pace throughout. The gap between Hogan and SLUH’s fifth man Zenor was only 19 seconds—by far, the smallest gap of the season.

               “We said our front guys are going to cover the front of the race and cover the lead as long as they can, and our one to five gap needs to stay under 30 seconds; if we do that, then we are going to have a ton of success and that’s what happened,” said head coach Joe Porter. “Our one to five spread was 19 seconds, which is incredible.”

So far this season, SLUH’s top seven has been undefeated. SLUH hopes to build upon this performance at the state meet, where SLUH will race against 15 other teams.

SLUH’s JV and freshman groups closed their season at the Findley Invitational with a spectacular win in the freshman and JV levels. 

       In the freshman race, SLUH won the race with Charlie Murray (1st) and Anthony Zangara (2nd) both running sub-18:15 to earn themselves varsity letters. Charlie Murray won his third race this season and was among six other SLUH freshmen to finish in the top ten of the race. 

        The JV race was split into two heats, and SLUH took 20 of the 25 medals in the JV race as a whole. In the first heat, SLUH took the top 15 finishers. In the second heat, seniors Parker Stus and Alex Thro dueled each other for the win in the first two miles. Stus made a move in the third mile to take the heat two victory.

        “MileSplit can take out and create a virtual meet minus the top 7 of each team, and our JV was able to win that. Across the state, if you take JV 8 to 14 then we have the best JV in the state by taking everyone’s best times. We win if we go from 14 to 21 and 21 to 28, too,” said Porter. “I think the results speak for itself. Everybody is really contributing at a really high level, and we definitely have the best JV team in the state.”