It may sound repetitive to say it, but the boys once again ran very well yesterday.  In just our 2nd 5k of the year, the boys rose to the occasion and overcame the warm temperatures, soft fields, and loose gravel of the Collegiate course.  Despite all of these challenges, most everyone had a personal best from the FUMA 5k just under a month ago.  Plus, I was most excited to have the whole team in action for just the second time this year.  You have to go back to the first St. Catherine's meet on 9/12 for the only other meet where we had all 13 boys in action.

 

We had 9 runners improve from their 5k at FUMA, with 2 runners not able to improve as they did not run/finish the FUMA 5k.  This covers most of the team.  Mac and Asa carried their state meet improvement into yesterday, with both runners dropping close to 1:30 from their FUMA 5k.  Nic and Harvie also dropped over 1:00 from FUMA, so that too was quite impressive.  We also had a quartet (Charlie, Grant, Liam, and Avery) drop about 20-30 seconds each from FUMA.  The mile paces were also nice improvements as we almost had the entire top 7 under 7:00 mile pace (21:45).  The 6 veterans dropped a cumulative time over 12:00 from their Collegiate 5ks a year ago on this course (which was run in cooler weather).  This was anchored by Nic dropping over 5:00 and Arjun dropping over 3:00 from a year ago.  All veterans dropped at least 40 seconds, so very impressive.  Speaking of impressive, Grant broke the magic 20-minute barrier, something that only 22 STC middle school runners have ever done.  Grant now ranks 21st overall in STC MS history, with one more 5k to go next Friday, not to mention his whole 8th grade season next fall, to move up "the list".  He also ranks 46th on the Collegiate 5k meet history which spans the last 15 years.

 

In the team score, there was some concern about New Community coming into the meet.  They did beat us in the relay meet and based on personal bests, were better on paper coming into this meet.  However, given the circumstances of those personal bests (ours from a hilly FUMA course a month ago and theirs from ideal conditions on a fast course at Pole Green two weeks ago) and the work I know we have put in this season, I was confident we would prevail.  I think the boys enjoyed having a little bit of extra motivation to go for the win yesterday, and I think this also played into the great times we ran.  When all was said and done, it was a dominating win with 41 points to New Community's 107 (St. Bridget had 108).  We logged 9 wins yesterday to move to 95-17 on the season.  Depending on how many scoring teams run at the Prep League meet, we have a shot to end the season with 99 or 100 wins.  This marked our 10th win in the 15 year history of this Collegiate meet, showing our continued dominance in middle school cross country in the area.