The St. Louis cross country teams traveled to Shepherd for the third time this season, competing in the second Jack Pine Conference meet Wednesday, Oct. 2. The boys team ended in fourth place and the girls finished in sixth.
The top five runners on the day for the boys were: Landon Pestrue who ran 16:19, Alex Rodriguez finished with 17:32, followed close behind by Colin Kuhn clocking in at 17:35, Hayden Shattuck at 18:18, and Jackson Schulz crossed the finish line at 20:35, a new personal record for the fifth runner.
Moving into girls’ race, leading the St. Louis pack was Halle Hoyt who ran 21:45, Abby Dice at 22:23, followed by Lilly Mann also with a 22:23, Sydney Dickman with a 22:25, and Annah Hess, who ran an excellent PR of 23:49.
The boys’ race ended with the team taking a second place overall finish in the smaller school standings, only two points behind Sanford-Meridian, compared to the 18 points from the last JPC. “It felt good that our team overall improved, that we all sped up, and in the end snuck up on Sanford Meridian and almost beat them,” stated Schulz, the crucial Shark fifth runner in the boys’ race.
Dice stated, “I feel like the girls performed very well, and we were all in the positions we needed to be in. I think we will all be outstanding by the third JPC, and we will be in even better positions after seeing how we’ve been improving all season.”
All in all, both the St. Louis boys and girls cross country teams are on the right track and making big improvements for where they need to be by the end of the season.
