Fresh off several impressive finishes for multiple runners in the Perryville Invitational, St. Vincent, Perryville and Saxony Lutheran runners took part in a much bigger meet and braved the rain as they travelled to the Notre Dame Invitational on Saturday in Cape Girardeau.
The meet featured 24 schools with 113 runners in the boys race and 89 participants in the girls race.
Jackson walked away with the boys team title, as St. Vincent finished eighth and Perryville came in 11th place as a team. The St. Vincent girls fared a little better as they finished seventh as team. Perryville and Saxony Lutheran did not place as a whole squad.
Despite the lower finishes, there were plenty of personal records and better times across the meet as the local runners were pushed by more racers. Every runner, but for two, for St. Vincent had a better time on Saturday than they did at the Perryville meet, sometimes by several minutes. The same goes for Perryville as all but one runner had a better time on Saturday.
To see that, a person would have to look no farther than Tegan Bishop, who finished seventh in the girls race with a time of 20:48.45. Bishop won the Perryville Invitational on Sept. 28, but finished 40 seconds faster at Notre Dame.
The same could be said for St. Vincent’s Gabe Anders who finished ninth overall in the boys race (18:00.06), which was six seconds faster than the week prior. Bishop and Anders were the only top 10 finishes by local runners on the day.
However, that doesn’t mean there were not other impressive times in the races.
