Owensboro Catholic boys and girls cross country teams competed at the Cross Country 1A Championships on Saturday, walking away with valuable experience for the future.
Owensboro Catholic girls
The Lady Aces had two athletes competing in seventh graders Peyton Reid and Ainsley Sutter. Reid finished with a time of 23:58.88 and Sutter followed closely behind with a time of 25:19.07.
Head Coach Rowan Jones was thrilled for the pair of seventh graders, knowing that this will set them up for success for the foreseeable future.
“Those two girls today for instance if they stay healthy and they stay interested, they could potentially race state for six years,” Jones said. “That’s huge. So you know, next year we bring a whole team next year and we have all those girls going forward and they can have five years experience or whatever. I mean, that’s how dynasties are built.”
Hoping to recruit more athletes to build a complete roster, Jones feels that with this experience their team can become a more proven threat year after year.
“Looking forward to next year, I’m hoping to have a full team come,” Jones said. “We’ve got some good high schoolers and now we’ve got this group of seventh graders coming up… Over half of my team was seventh graders this year, so to have two of them come out and run individually is a big deal for them.”
Owensboro Catholic and Trinity boys
The boys competed as a team, placing 19th out of 36 schools. Austin Marsh led the Aces with a time of 19:59.82, while Braden Davis followed closely behind at 20:13.20.
Nolan Murphy (20:22.73), Lance Dickens (22:20.20) and Cooper Danzer (22:42.75) rounded out their top-five for an average team score of 21:07.
Given the horrible conditions due to the rain, Head Coach Scott Lowe was pleased with how Owensboro Catholic competed to prove that their hard work paid off.
“Just so excited for the guys how they finished wet muddy course still finishing the top 20 and state,” Lowe said. I just contribute it to the hard work they put in all year.”
This Aces team had no state experience prior to this year, so Lowe was thrilled to have them battle and place well amongst the best in the commonwealth.
“Not having any runners ever compete at state and then come out and finish the way they did I’m so excited,” Lowe said.
Trinity (Whitesville) had one player compete individually, as Jakob Howard finished with a time of 18:54.61
