Sweeping the Oct. 11 meet at Willmore Park, the girls cross country won on the varsity, JV and freshmen teams.
“We actually went out to the course on Friday evening to preview it. It was raining and muddy but learning the lay of the land was important to success,” Coach Charlie Cutelli said.
Sophomore Natalie Rath placed first in the varsity race with a time of 19:40.
“It was a pretty flat course but there were still some gradual hills. My time was my personal record (PR) and it was faster than my previous PR from Forest Park (19:42) which was a really flat course, so it was an accomplishment for me,“ Rath said.
Sophomore Maggie Hulen placed first in the JV race with a time of 22:13.
“I thought the course was easier than in the past because there were less hills,“ Hulen said.
Freshman Betsy Wait place first in the freshman race with a time of 22:48.
“The meet was smaller than some other races. It was really muddy that day, but we ran right through the mud,“ Wait said.
The team has been in the top five finishers in every meet.
“Years ago we struggled to place in the top three or four in many of our meets. The team really rallied around our success the past couple of years. Winning meets and being one of the top teams in St. Louis was what they expect of themselves,” Cutelli said.
The team encourages each other to do their best while at a meet.
“We’re all really supportive and push each other to do out best no matter what level,every person passed counts. The place you get is the number of points your team earn. They generally score the top five from each team. You want your team to have the least number of points to win,” sophomore Maggie Morse said.
Conference is followed by districts, sectionals and then state.
“Hopefully this success will carry over into the district, sectional and state meet,” Cutelli said.
The district meet will be held at Parkway Central on Saturday, Oct. 25.