St. Vincent hosted a home meet, with schools visiting from around the area, including Perryville, at the Seminary Picnic Grounds in Perryville.
The meet was shortened due to extremely hot temperatures, as heat indexes exceeded triple digits Thursday. The runners, originally prepared for a full 5k, ran the 2400 meter middle school course instead.
The top finisher on the boys side was St. Vincent’s Carter Hennemann, who finished with a time of 7:43.9. Two other St. Vincent boys, Luke Ryan and Caden Hadler, finished inside the top 10, 3rd and 9th respectively with times of 8:12.1 and 8:36.1. The highest placing Perryville runner on the boys side was Easton Blechle, who just missed the top 10, finishing 12th at 8:52.9.
St. Vincent topped the leaderboard on the girls side as well, with Anna Welker finishing first with a time of 9:29.5. Perryville’s fastest female was Lucy Blythe, who finished 13th at 11:34.
St. Vincent cross country coach John McLain said that everybody’s main concern on the day was not setting the fastest time, but staying safe in the conditions. It was still in the high 90s when the meet began at nearly 6:00 p.m., an hour after its originally scheduled start time.
“The main thing was just that we kept everybody safe on our team and, you know and just across the board and the back of the ambulance never opened once,” McLain said. “And so that’s always a successful home meet, you know, when you can keep people safe and having positive experiences. So that is what we are most grateful for. …and then the icing on the cake was that in the end by doing that, they were able to finish strong and still put in some really strong times and some strong places as well.”
