St. Peter Rockets shows signs of success in first cross country meet

With tropical humidity and the threat of storms, St. Peter hosted the first Tri-County Conference cross country meet last Monday. The races were held at Wheeler Park in Geneva. The crowd was large and enthusiastic as they buzzed with the excitement of the first test of the season.

After a successful three weeks of summer practice, the fifth-graders from St. Peter looked strong in the first race of their career.

Led by Lucas Chung in ninth place, the young runners kept their score low enough for a second place finish with 63 points in the 1.5 mile race. It will be tough to catch up to the top-placing St. Charles Borromeo team from Hampshire as they scored only 31 points with all of their scoring runners in the top 10.

Also noteable for the St. Peter Rockets were fifth-grader Nathan Beck who finished 10th out of the boys and fifth-grader Colleen Thumm who placed second among the girls in her cross country debut while sixth-grader Grace Caskey finished in seventh. The Rockets second- through fifth-place runners ran well in a pack with only 7 seconds separating them. This strategy will serve them well in the future as they chase the tough team from Hampshire.

The 7/8th team finished a close fourth place, only seven points behind St. Charles Borromeo with 87 points in the two-mile race. The dominant winner was St. Patrick of St. Charles with a score of only 33 points. Eighth-grader William Huber finished ninth among the boys. Sixth-grader Nora Brady, running with the older team, placed third in the girls division in her two-mile conference debut. She was followed by returning eighth-graders and 2015 IESA State Qualifiers Mary Tork in fourth and Kaitlyn Zucco in seventh place. Seventh-grader Taylor Austin also grabbed a top 10 finish placing ninth among the girls.

The St. Peter Rockets are in action next week as they hit the road and travel to Sycamore for more conference action.