Lucy in the sky with T-C diamonds
PERU — St. Bede’s Lucy Stanke crossed the finish line at Wednesday’s Tri-County Cross Country Meet and immediately continued down the chute into the outstretch arms of her father, Scott.
With her head buried in her father’s chest, Stanke blurted out with a tone of excitement, “I won” to which her father replied with equal joy, “I know.”
In a season in which illness and the competition have been running side-by-side, Stanke bested the field on her home course and led a St. Bede girls squad that ran away from the competition to take the Tri-County Conference title Wednesday at the Academy.
“It was really good,” Stanke said of her dad’s finish-line greeting. “During the races he sits back and he cheers, but he’s always there at the finish. It was really nice.”
Stanke, who has been battling sinus problem all season, took the lead coming out the first turn and never looked back. The senior harrier ran with Henry-Midland’s Rachel Kingery and teammate Kayla MacDavitt for the first part of the race before slowly distancing herself.
She strode down the home stretch with no competition around to post the winning time of 21 minutes, 6.53 seconds, which is a new personal best time on St. Bede’s 3-mile course.
“She did really well and I was really happy for her,” St. Bede coach Dennis Summers said. “I was hoping she’d hold off the girl from Henry. It was her first big win of the year and she needed something like that to boost her confidence.”
MacDavitt wasn’t too far behind. A dual cross country-volleyball athlete, MacDavitt finished third with a time of 21:54.09.
“I wanted to finish top something, so it’s nice,” she said before heading off to volleyball practice. “I think this is my best time on this course, so I’ll take it.”
St. Bede’s two top three runners were a part of four Bruin harriers that placed in the top 10 and part of the five scoring runners in the top 16.
In addition to the top two, the Bruins’ Julia Jackson finished seventh (22:4.75), Hannah Read placed 10th (23:15.41) and Jenna Ebener 16th (24:51.89) as St. Bede edged Marquette for the team crown, 37-44.
“Marquette had a few injures, so you take what can get,” Summers said. “All the girls ran well ...and four of them got in the top 10, so it’s really encouraging. I’m really proud of them.”
While the girls took the title, the Bruin boys had a collective off day. There top placer was 14th as they finished fifth (96) behind champion Marquette (28).
“I don’t know what happened to them today,” Summers said. “But they’re coming. Three of the top seven are only juniors, so I hope they can get speeding up a little bit here.”
Szymon Ligas’s led the team with a time of 18:50.19. Ayethaw Tun placed 22nd (20:13.88), Matthew Gualandri 23rd (20:31.66), Connor Armstrong 26th (21:10.40) and Dominic Fanti 27th (21:11.84).
