After an eight-year hiatus, girls’ cross country has returned to St. Aloysius High School.

Lack of interest and students participating in more than one sport in the fall season brought the team down over those years. In 2009 and 2010, coach Donald Roesch said the Flashes had a couple girls running and in 2011 there was one, but it takes five members to score as a full team and this year five girls have stepped up to form the first full girls team since 2008.

“Hopefully it captures their interest and they want to keep it up,” Roesch said.

The main reason the team was able to bounce back this year is because of the school’s transition from the Mississippi High School Activities Association to the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools. In MAIS, teams are allowed to have sixth- through 12th-grade students compete instead of seventh- through 12th grades like in the MHSAA. Three of the five team members this year are in sixth grade.

Mari Miller Theobald, a sixth-grader, said she joined because she didn’t want to regret not competing when she got older like her mom did. She thinks its special to be a part of the team that brought the sport back.

“I think it will grow bigger and bigger,” Theobald said.

Roesch originally thought the move to the MAIS would sink the team permanently because more sports seasons were moved to the fall. Girls’ soccer and softball were both in other seasons in the MHSAA, but are now in the fall and have stretched St. Al’s talent pool thin. Several athletes play both sports, and there are other activities in the fall as well, such as cheerleading, dance and swimming.

However with younger students being accepted, Roesch’s daughter Madelyn and some of her friends chose to try their hand at running cross country. His team is comprised of three sixth graders, one seventh grader and one eighth grader, Rachel Garmon.

“All of the sudden we had five, and if we could keep all five going, we knew we were in good shape,” Roesch said.

The team formed over the summer. Some days at practice they run longer distances, from 3 to 3 ½ miles, Roesch said, and other days they run faster in shorter distances to improve their speed.

Last week, the Lady Flashes ran at their first meet in Clinton. They placed 14th out of 18 varsity teams. The young team gives Roesch hope for the future of the program. He said they’re competing well within their age group so far.

“They started working in June, and they’ve worked up to where they’re building their mileage and able to do the distance and compete a little,” Roesch said. “They did pretty well in their first meet being as young as they are.”

The girls have diverse interests, and Roesch is mindful to let them indulge those. Team members Karly Henderson and Iley Baldwin were busy and missed a practice last week.

“We juggle a lot of their schedules. We have a couple that go to dance, one who plays piano, four of the five cheer and one who plays soccer,” Roesch said. “They run four and five times a week to work out, so they’ve been able to make it work.”

Madelyn Roesch, a sixth-grader, said running has helped her with soccer and is something her whole family does.

“It took a while to slowly start getting up to a certain distance,” she said of her training. “I hope (the team) grows.”

The girls’ team has two more meets scheduled this season, on Oct. 17 and Oct. 31.

“I wanted to do it because it’s a good condition for any other sports that I do, and I’ve started to actually like it a lot,” Garmon said. “It’s special because we’re the ones who are starting it again and maybe other people will want to do it also.”