2026 Perryville Meet Recap

This year marked the 6th edition of Perryville's Cutlass Meet and the second with the new identical loop structure.  The course is not as challenging at it used to be, but that by no means makes it easy.  At the high school level there were 11 teams in attendance.  With it being the second of three meets in ten days, we did sit a few runners out and only raced 12 athletes, 5 boys and 7 girls.  Like our own, this meet only features a single race each for boys and girls. 

Boys Race

The boys were our first team to run.  We sat out Carter, Luke, and Jackson.  We knew that would affect our team score, but with five boys still running, we had enough finishers for a team score and wanted to see how we could do.  In the end our boys held their own, finishing in 4th place behind Windsor, North County, and Seckman, all Class 4 or 5 schools.  Our primary competition looking to the future was Meadow Heights, who is in our district.  They only raced 4 athletes and therefore didn't score as a team.  But we matched up fairly well with the athletes they did race.

Caden was our first finisher.  His goal was to try to match the top runner from Meadow Heights.  He did that well but went out a bit faster than preferred to make it happen.  In the end he did slow a bit, settling for 7th place.  That being said, he finished less than 30 seconds behind both of the top two Meadow Heights runners, which is about how far he was off of his PR from a much faster Northwest Course.  This is the third time Caden has raced this meet, and since his freshman year he has shaved nearly 6 minutes off his time at the meet.  

Collin was our next boy across the line.  He was sick the day of the Northwest Meet and wasn't scheduled to race at Fox, making this his very first 5K since last year's Conference Meet.  He picked up exactly where he left off, running a time nearly identical to that meet.  It was more than a minute faster than what he ran last year and only about 15 seconds off his PR.

Adam and Trever were our next finishers.  Unlike the first two boys, Adam did race at Fox.  We knew he wasn't likely to match that time.  He still ran well on the rollings hills, and unlike Fox he didn't lose ground to the competition, instead passing four athletes over the last two miles.  Trever didn't run at Fox and was completing just his second 5K.  The one at Northwest was in fairly significant heat, so we knew he had a good chance to improve.  That he did, staying with Adam the entire race.  That gave him a new PR by more than 90 seconds and showed we're looking at a strong 1-2 punch for what look to be our 6th and 7th runners.

Tristin was our final boy.  Fresh off his strong finish at Fox, he rolled that into an aggressive start to this race.  But he kept that momentum rolling the rest of the way, passing a whopping 18 runners from the 1 mile to the end of the race.  That earned him a new season best, nearly a minute faster than his time at the much flatter Fox Meet.  Like Caden, this was also Tristin's third time running at Perryville.  He's also shown insane progress, shaving just under 4 minutes off of his time freshman year.  

Girls Race

Like in the boys race, the girls race saw us short a few runners in Anna, Charlotte, and Alaina.  While the race did feature two schools from our district, neither of them ran enough runners to score as a team, and there's a chance that will be true at the district meet as well.  Really for our girls it was about stacking up against much bigger schools.  And even with a short squad they held their own, finishing in 4th behind the same three schools as the boys.

Aubrey was our first girl across the finish line.  She and Adeline stayed together for most of the first two miles before Aubrey pulled ahead over the last one.  She passed nearly half of the girls who were ahead of her at the 1 mile, moving up from 17th to 10th by the end of the race.  And despite the much more difficult course, her finish time was less than 30 seconds off of her time last week at Fox.  

Adeline was our next finisher.  After a solid start, she lost a little ground in the second mile before bouncing back stronger in the last mile.  She passed three girls, including one just before the finish line.  While her time was about a minute slower than at Fox, it was still an impressive three and a half minutes faster than at last year's meet.  

Kiera and Lexi were our next two girls across the line.  Both girls were racing for the first time since the Northwest Meet, and they stayed together pretty much the entire race.  After a conservative first mile, they were able to move up from there.  For both girls, their last mile was actually the fastest of the race, which is what we want to see.  Kiera pulled slightly ahead of Lexi in the last 800 meters, passing 7 runners after the 1 mile.  Lexi was able to pass 6, with a girl from Kelly sandwiched in between them.  For Kiera, it was 18-second improvement on her time from Northwest, while for Lexi it was a 15-second improvement.  For both girls to PR on a course like Perryville is an impressive feat.  

Reese was our fifth finisher.  She ran her first mile exactly as prescribed.  After that came a little bit of trouble, but she continued to push through that all the way to the finish, passing five girls along the way. While her time was slower than at Fox, it was still two and a half minutes faster  than at Northwest.

Adele was the next girl across the line.  Even though her first mile was 19 seconds slower than at Fox, that allowed her to hang tough and hold the pace.  She stayed with a Kelly runner the entire second half of the race and finished just behind her, 17 seconds faster than last Thursday for a new PR.  She also passed five other girls along the way  

Neva was our final finisher.  She has been working on conquering the temptation to stop and walk, and today she won that battle.  It showed in her performance.  She stayed with Adele through most of the first two miles.  While she fell off a bit after that, she never quit running.  That gave her a finish time four and a half minutes faster than at Fox and almost three minutes faster than her PR from Northwest.

In the end, 7 of our 12 athletes who raced ran their fastest times of the season.  We had four individual medals and a lot of lessons learned that can be applied to races going forward.

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