St. Peter's Rockets in a conference race for second place

With St. Charles Borromeo dominating the race once again, the St. Peter fifth- and sixth-grade cross country team has found themselves in a race for second place against longtime rival St. Patrick of St. Charles. With the lengthy travel time, the team had scant time to warm up before the starting gun of the second Tri-County Conference meet of the season at Sycamore Park in Sycamore.

Twenty minutes after arriving, the fifth- and sixth-graders were off to a good start once again running in their customary tight pack. However with a half mile to go, the St. Patrick team had wedged their way into the middle of the Rocket runners creating a gap that ultimately iced second place. The St. Peter team was led by fifth-graders Ryan Fors and Nathan Beck in 11th and 12th place. Fifth-grader Colleen Thumm, sixth-grader Grace Caskey and fifth-grader Katarina Koester finished in third, fourth and sixth place among the girls.

The seventh- and eighth-grade team got off to a rough start with three potential scoring runners dropping out of the race due to illness and injury. The remainder of the team fought hard and managed a close fourth-place finish behind host St. Mary Sycamore. Once again leading the way for St. Peter was eighth-grader William Huber in seventh place. St. Peter's second scoring runner was sixth-grader Nora Brady whose season is off to a great start. Brady finished fourth among the girls. Seventh-grader Taylor Austin also broke into the girls top 10, again finishing seventh.

The Rockets have a busy upcoming week with two large invitationals. They will be participating in the Royal Cadet Invitational at Marmion Academy in Aurora on Tuesday and then travelling to Shorewood, Ill., for the huge 50y team Troy Invitational on Saturday.