 Every year our Conference Meet is a battle against Goliaths. There are currently 10 schools in the Jefferson County Athletic Association: Crystal City, Desoto, Festus, Grandview, Herculaneum, Hillsboro, Jefferson, Perryville, Windsor, and ourselves. Not only are we the smallest of those schools, but the big ones are some of the best teams in the state. In Class 2 Jefferson is currently ranked 9th on the boys side. The Herculaneum boys and girls teams are both ranked 2nd in Class 3. In Class 4 Festus is ranked 2nd on the boys side and 1st on the girls side. Desoto is also ranked 6th on the boys side. The meet taking place during Homecoming weekend also complicated things. Each of our athletes had the choice whether to run this meet or the upcoming one at North County. In the end we had 7 girls and 6 boys choose to race. In order to get back to town as quickly as possible, we ran all of our athletes in the varsity races. Even with storms pending, temperatures were warm, 13 degrees above average. With the humidity brought by the approaching front, that made some pretty unpleasant conditions for October that certainly impacted performances. On average athletes across all schools ran slower than typical for this meet. The finish times for the final all-conference spot for the boys and girls races were 50 seconds slower on average than last year. But even in the unfavorable conditions, the fields showed up to compete at Larry G. Crites Memorial Park in Festus. Varsity Girls RaceOur girls ran first. With race times bumped up, they were on a bit tighter time schedule than expected. Given that five of our seven girls in the race were seniors, we were up against some exhaustion from the previous week. Nonetheless our ladies showed up to race with the hopes of fighting into the top 3 at Conference for the first time ever. In the end we came up just short of that goal. Festus not only secured a perfect score of 15, they managed to get their entire team across the finish line before anyone else. Herculaneum claimed 7 of the next 10 spots to earn an easy 2nd. After a big gap, the remaining 4 teams were separated by less than 20 points. In the end Hillsboro and Desoto were barely able to edge our girls, and we finished in 5th.  Reagan was our first finisher for the girls. It's been a long week for her between the senior activities and band, and she wasn't able to make practice several days this week. That definitely played a factor. She didn't go out as fast as usual and ran into some struggles during the second mile. But she was able to rebound in the final mile to move up a few places. That meant an 11th-place finish and recognition for All-Conference Honorable Mention. Last year at this point in the season Reagan was unable to run at all, so it was good to see her back on the conference course, where her time was still two minutes faster than during her sophomore year.  Anna finished next. She ran a consistent race that allowed her to move up over the course of the race. The last of those pushed her into the top 15, where a 13th place finish also earned her All-Conference Honorable Mention status. Many of the girls around her were the same ones from Herculaneum she had raced with not only at last year's meet but given that many of them are sophomores, at our opening race in Jackson. Last year all 7 of these girls beat Anna, as did the 5 sophomores at Jackson. But this time around she managed to get in front of 3 of them. Even with the warmer conditions, her finish time was 50 seconds faster than last year.  Next came Audrey. Last year she missed this meet due to illness, so it was excited to see her get one last try at Conference. She did run the fastest first mile of her career, but unfortunately she was battling a little bit of sickness again, along with the fatigue of a long Homecoming Week. It caught up to her mid-race, and while she held her position, she wasn't able to move up like she usually does. Despite her struggles, her finish time was still more than 3 minutes faster than back during her last run at Conference during her sophomore season.  Adeline and Jocelyn were our next two finishers. They stayed together practically the entire race before Adeline pulled a few seconds ahead in the final sprint. As both are in band, the fatigue from the week did catch up with them a bit in the last mile, but they still finished ahead of their time at Perryville. For Adeline it was more than 90 seconds faster than her last race at Notre Dame. For Jocelyn, it was nearly five minutes faster than last year's time. In fact, it was more than 2 minutes faster than she'd ever fun at Conference, all of this after a long Homecoming Week.  Sybina was our next finisher. As someone who typically thrives in the cold mornings at Conference, she was the most bummed by the warmer temperatures and the fact that the rain held off. She also had to make it through the long week of a band member. Nonetheless, she still managed to run a strong race. Even in a thin field she managed to pass two runners, once again ending up side-by-side with Perryville's Eloise Bollinger. This time Sybina left nothing to chance, taking off in the last 100 meters to finish 6 seconds faster than she did at Notre Dame.  Sybella was our final girl to finish. Given all the circumstances, we didn't expect many season bests at the meet. But we should have known Sybella had one up her sleeve. She looked really strong in her hard workout last Monday. Even as Sybina made her surge in the middle of the race, Sybella kept her within reach much longer than usual. In the end she finished just 35 seconds behind her sister. Her time was 10 seconds faster than at our home meet, giving her a new season best performance.  Varsity Boys RaceGiven our young team and the high level of competition, our boys team was projected to finish at the back of the pack. While we certainly didn't break into the block of the bigger state-ranked teams, we held our own. Aided by a strong finish up front by Carter and a pack of sophomore boys who continue to push each other behind that, we made some quality improvements. This is the fourth 5K we've raced against Perryville this year. The average time of their top 5 finishers in those three races were 30, 170, and 80 seconds faster than ours respectively. This time the gap was only 22 seconds, leaving us only 2 points behind the Pirates in the team score.  Carter was our first boy to finish. He started a little slow, leaving him with some work to do in the second half of the race. But he did go to work. Carter passed 10 runners after the mile, which was over half the athletes in front of him. That earned him a 7th place finish, two places better than last year and the best finish ever at Conference by a boy from our school.  After that came our long line of Indians. We kept four boys together through the first two miles. The pace was a little spicy at the start, which did cost them a little in the middle of the race. However, they were able to pick it up a little at the end. Collin, Jackson, and Caden stayed together through the end of the race, finishing in that order and working past four more runners in the final mile. None of these boys quite hit new PRs, but they were all within 15 seconds of their bests in much tougher conditions with far less competition to keep them moving up. It was also their first time on this course for all of these boys, as an injury last year had already ended Caden's racing season.  Luke was with these three for the first two miles. His lack of consistent training for over a month did catch up to him in the last mile, but he still shaved more than 3 minutes off of his time at Notre Dame. There's still a lot of progress to go, but Luke showed a toughness and proved he's well on the way to his old form.  Noah was our final boy to finish. Last year he missed this meet due to illness. He hasn't gotten the benefits of our race-pace workouts the last two weeks and didn't have anyone to race against, but he still pushed through the course. A fast start also caught up to him a bit in the final mile, but he still worked to the finish at the end of a long week that also included two soccer games.  In the end we ran two season bests and showed a lot of promise going into what is hopefully a cooler postseason. We also learned a few things we can still work on in the two weeks leading up to districts!  Find More Meet Photos HereFind Full Results HereComments are closed.
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