Some St. Louis runners involved in indoor track traveled Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 22-23, to Eastern Michigan University for the Michigan Indoor Track Series (MITS) State Meet. According to coach Brian Tomanek, seven girls qualified, and it was the most in school history. The athletes who qualified were Jenna Abell, Mikenna Borie, Jaiden Dickman, Payton Kuhn, Libby Munderloh, Adry Munoz, and Chloe O’Boyle.

Munderloh ran in the 1600-meter run, and she took 10th place out of 40 with an incredible time of 5:19.42. She ran a great race and missed all-state by a mere two spots and less than two seconds.

Munderloh was also a part of the sprint medley relay team that qualified. The team consisted of Borie, O’Boyle, Munoz, and Munderloh, and they came into the meet ranked last at 33rd, but they improved to take 15th out of the 33 teams with a time of 4:32.32.

Tomanek stated, “They improved their time by 36 seconds and should be very proud of their performance.”

Munderloh shared, “I didn’t really do as well as I would have liked to this past weekend, but the meet did give me some confidence for the upcoming outdoor track season. As a team, we moved up really well in the rankings, and a lot of girls had some new personal bests. We surprised a lot of people with our performances, like the fact that our SMR team moved from 33rd in the rankings to 15th overall.”

Borie competed in the SMR and the 4×800 meter relay. She said, “Being able to run was a great experience, and I had a lot of fun with the other girls.”

Additionally, the distance medley relay team of Dickman, O’Boyle, Kuhn, and Munderloh took 11th out of 18 teams with a season PR of 13:08.88! O’Boyle also competed in the 60-meter dash and ran an impressive 8.37 in preliminaries.

Tomanek shared, “Definitely the goal is to qualify as many girls as possible and earn all-state honors, but that didn’t happen this year. It looks like we made a big step this year and may be one year away from making another step.  Overall, these girls had a great weekend, and many of them have put in the work for three to four years now, and it shows. The work, commitment, and dedication to doing the right stuff make these girls special. They earn every bit of success that comes their way.”