Brother Martin’s Cross Country Junior High Team took home the win with a narrow one-point win over district foe St. Augustine (44-45) to win the City Park Varsity Sports/New Balance Invitational.
The Cross Country program competed in two meets Sept. 16: The City Park meet and the Christian Brothers Invitational in Abita Springs.
In City Park, The Junior High team pushed past St. Augustine with the help of runners who were in the top 12 including James Clark (5th), Nick Sharpe (6th), Evan DeCastro (10th), Mark Delahoussaye (11th) and Dylan Rodriguez (12th). Meanwhile, the Junior Varsity squad finished third in the two-mile race behind a 7th place finish from sophomore Adam Ledet.
In Abita Springs, the Junior High, Junior Varsity and Varsity teams all faced some of the toughest competition in the state. In an extremely gutsy performance against a Catholic High team from Baton Rouge who beat the young Crusader Harriers last week by more than 50 points, the Junior High team placed third in the top 10 to cut the gap to 12 points this week to hold on to 2nd place over Jesuit.
Leading the way for our young guys this week were Merritt Pecoraro (4th), Evan Starring (9th), and Bryce Davey (10th). We will see this team again on October 7th one more time at the Catholic High Invitational in Baton Rouge.
The junior varsity struggled mightily against an onslaught of St. Paul runners who perfect-scored the meet at 15 points. However, sophomores Ethan Dupas and Joseph Lee snuck into the top 10, finishing 9th and 10th, respectively.
In the varsity race, Catholic High continues to dominate the state with their tight packs. However, Brother Martin’s Varsity team is closing the gap, just as the Junior High harriers have done. Despite some initial confusion with scoring, Brother Martin’s team placed second, just 12 points behind Catholic High and 17 points ahead of St. Paul’s (61,73,90). Hunter Appleton, Hayden Courrege’, Cade Litolff, Tyler Epps, and Michael Champagne scored this week for the team.
The Varsity team heads to Shreveport to face a strong Airline Team and other Northern Louisiana and Texas schools in the Airline Cross Country Festival. Junior varsity and junior high teams will not race this upcoming weekend.
