StC News

Saints Make it a Fourth Straight Double Prep League Win

Coach Carrier
The Varsity Saints won their Varsity race and the Middle School team won their JV race, with Collegiate as the runner-up in both races.
Friday was a great day for cross country with that typical fall chill and plenty of the leaves changing color at the Collegiate Robins Campus.  I always like for our boys to be there for the Varsity race as many of them will play an integral part in that Prep League championship meet as early as next year.  It is also fun to see the top 15 awards at the end as the STC Varsity ended up with 6 in that group (almost 7 with a 16th place finish for Patrick Mayer), including the top 9th grader (Liam Kurzawa - 12th).  After Collegiate had been ahead of the STC varsity squad all season, including a 2-point victory just last week, the STC Varsity was ready to race yesterday and ended up with a 5-point victory over Collegiate.  After a 5th place finish in 2016, this marks the 4th straight Prep League title for the Saints (there was no championship in 2020).  I hope our current MS runners will continue that string of titles as they move on to high school in the next year or two.  The Varsity squad was even missing their top runner (from the earlier part of the season).  Similarly, our middle school squad was missing our typical #3 and #4 runners yesterday.  And, much like the Varsity, the other runners stepped up to fill those shoes.
 
Our goal yesterday was to get back out on a course we had run a week earlier and try to chip off a little bit from our 5k times on 10/28 at Collegiate.  Essentially, we were looking to shave about 5 seconds per mile this week and get around a 15-second PR.  Once again, these guys delivered and then some.  Just about everybody dropped more than 20 seconds from their time a week ago.  Ben led the way in time dropped with 1:06 (technically Brody dropped more, but his 1:13 drop was from his FUMA time since he did not run the Collegiate 5k last week).  LT also had a big drop of 48 seconds.  Maybe more impressive, both Ben and LT broke the 20:00 barrier with those big drops.  James, along with Noah, dropped over 30 seconds from last week.  In the process, James became just the 3rd STC MS runner to ever break 19:00 for a 5k and is the only 7th grader to ever do it!  With Charlie, Cole, and Mac each dropping 21 to 24 seconds, it seemed like everywhere you look there were some impressive times, drops, and mile pace averages.
 
We dominated the scoring, putting 4 in the top 8.  We won with 33 points to Collegiate's 49 in second.  Again, without our usual #3 and #4 guy.  Asher became the 2nd STC MS runner to win the JV Prep League individual title and his time of 18:09 is the 2nd fastest STC MS 5k ever run, behind his own 17:58 from last week.  A nice way to cap off his season, which will go down in the books as the best middle school individual season on record.  We have only run the JV Prep League 4 years (2017-2019, 2021) and we have won that race all 4 years.  That coincides nicely with the matching Prep League titles from the Varsity.  We both look to continue those streaks in 2022.
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