St. Vincent senior Reagan Meyer claimed first place in the girls’ division and teammate Carter Henneman, a junior, finished second on the boys’ side at the annual St. Vincent Cross Country Invitational on Thursday at the Seminary Picnic grounds in Perryville.
In Meyer’s case, her winning time of 19 minutes, 59.00 seconds, also proved to be a new meet and school record.
“That was really big,” said St. Vincent coach John McClain, adding that the previous school record — set by Laura Steele — had been in place since 2011, the program’s first year of competition.
“[Steele] was a senior that year and ran a phenomenal race. [That record had] stood the test of time ever since. We’ve had a lot of really great runners come through since then, and a few had come a little bit close, but nobody had broken it. Reagan, she dipped just under 20 minutes. She’s the first girl from our program to ever do that. That’s always a pretty impressive milestone when you can get below that mark.”
Henneman finished second in 17:26.88, trailing gold medalist Jayden Metzler of St. Pius X (16:38.55) by just over a minute.
“[Metzler] is a fast runner,” McClain said. “Those two have matched up a couple years in a row now in districts. You never know one race to another who’s going to have the better day. That’s a friendly rivalry — they were they were chatting it up after the races. Second place is nothing to complain about. It’s early in the season, and we’re still trying to kind of learn and make some adjustments as we as we go further in.”
Thursday’s cooler temperatures proved very beneficial to runners from all 14 teams that competed in the event.
The weather was phenomenal,” McClain said, “and so I think that that definitely helps run some really great times. We were definitely pleased with what we saw.”
Shadrick Shafer, coach of the crosstown rival Perryville Pirates, agreed, calling it “a great day.” “Some of the best weather we’ve had for that race in probably a decade,” Shafer said. “We had a really good day.”
Perryville was led on the boys’ side by senior Clayton Bauwens, who finished fourth in 17:53.44. Jackson Judge of Cedar Hill Northwest was third in 17:52.85. In the girls’ race, senior Alexa Hagan led the Lady Pirates, finishing 23rd in 24:45.96. Despite each having at least one medalist, neither St. Vincent nor Perryville made much of a showing in the team standings. In the girls’ division, St. Vincent finished fourth with 89 points and Perryville was fifth with 103.
In the boys' competition, Perryville finished sixth at 140 and St. Vincent seventh at 156. Cedar Hill Northwest swept the team competition, claiming first place on the girls’ side with 32 points and first place on the boys’ side with 26.
“[Northwest] came down with force,” McClain said. “They swept both races, the team side at least, and I think their whole scoring seven earned a medal on the boys’ side. They ran really well, and I think that’s good for our meet. It brings some competition in and it forces some of the schools that are there — ourselves included — to really run a lot better than maybe they would have if you didn’t have that challenge. It was good to have them.”
Shafer agreed, saying it was excellent experience for his young team.
“There were a couple of new teams that came down, and they brought a not just a lot of runners, but a lot a very talented runners,” Shafer said. “It’s good for the kids to see those levels of competition, and go out and push themselves. We’ve got a pretty young team this year in terms of experience. Seven of them, this was their first 5K and I was really, really pleasantly surprised with how they responded to it. Almost every single kid was under the goal time that we had set, so that was very, very promising.”
Rounding out the girls’ side for St. Vincent were 10 Anna Welker, who finished 10th in 22:36.79; Audrey Amschler in 29th at 25:06.56; Adeline Carlton in 52nd at 27:51.30, just ahead of Jocelyn Weibrecht in 53rd at 27:54.95; Sybina Nations in 58th at 30:23.65; Sybella Nations in 62nd in 31:30.53, and Sydney Taylor in 63rd with a time of 31:37.76. For Perryville, Lucy Blythe 34th in 25:28.68; Anna Rehagen was 37th in 26:02.92; Addelynne Kirn was 41st in 26:37.99, just ahead of teammate Esveidy Antonio Garcia, who was 42nd in 26:48.92; Katie Baggett was 45th in 27:14.85; Grace Buchheit was 51st in 27:42.51; Miley Reed was 55th in 29:01.17; Eloise Bollinger was 57th in 29:59.78; and Irma Camaja Raymundo was 64th in 31:37.84.
On the boys’ side for St. Vincent, was 56th in 22:09.84; Caden Hadler was 57th in 22:09.89; Jackson Strattman was 58th in 22:13.91; Noah Winschel was 62nd in 22:28.43; Bo Burgin was 65th in 22:29.65; and Tristin Anders was 90th in 25:37.90.
For Perryville, Easton Blechle was 29th in 20:14.61; Ro d n e y Rauh was 45th in 21:26.16; Brandon Roth was 54th in 22:07.08; Colton O’Keefe was 70th in 22:51.56; Aidan Unverferth was 73rd in 23:27.56; Cale Austin was 84th in 24:43.28; Jonathon Randolph was 91st in 25:38.62; and Lucas Fritsche was 98th in 28:44.75.
