St. Aloysius had a big day at its biggest cross country meet of the season.

St. Al’s girls’ team had three runners place in the top 12 and finished second in the team standings Tuesday at the MAIS Class AAA state meet at Choctaw Trails in Clinton.

The boys’ team, meanwhile, had four runners in the top 25 and finished third overall as a team.

“I can’t say enough about how well the kids raced,” St. Al coach Donald Roesch said. “The girls raced a distance that they haven’t in several weeks and all eight established personal best times. To race your best when it counts the most, at the state championships, is just phenomenal.”

The Lady Flashes — nor anyone else, for that matter, were a match for Kirk Academy in the girls’ 4-kilometer meet.

Led by state champion Morgan Claire Rose, Kirk swept the top five places to finish first with 15 points — the best possible score. Teams receive one point for first place, two for second, and so on, with the top five runners from each team being scored, and the lowest score wins the team championship.

St. Al was the only other team with more than one runner in the top 12, and netted 94 points to edge Canton Academy 94-96 for second place.

Rachel Garmon, Iley Baldwin and Dede Apenyo finished 10th, 11th and 12th, respectively, for St. Al. Garmon is a freshman and Baldwin an eighth-grader.

Garmon finished with a time of 17 minutes, 56 seconds, while Baldwin crossed the line in 17:59 and Apenyo in 18:03. Rose’s winning time was 14:25.

St. Al had another trio of runners finish together in 35th through 37th place — Anna Ware Brown, Linley Miles and Mary Miller Theobald.

Porter’s Chapel Academy’s Hannah Lee finished 54th, with a time of 20:50. The Lady Eagles were 11th in the team standings.

In the boys’ 5-kilometer meet, St. Al was again on the right side of a close decision. It had three runners in the top 20 and totaled 99 points to edge Columbia Academy for third place. Columbia had 104 points.
Cathedral won the boys’ state championship with 36 points, and Kirk Academy was second with 45.

Chandler Roesch was St. Al’s top finisher, with a time of 18:48 that was good for 12th place. Charlie Gannon (19:14) finished 15th, and Gregory Thomas (19:38) was 20th out of 107 runners. Adam Eckstein (19:56) finished 24th.

Porter’s Chapel Academy eighth-grader Bridger Jung finished 27th overall, Holden Ginn was 30th, and the Eagles ranked ninth out of 12 teams in the team standings.

“The guys attacked the course, raced a tactically smart race and picked up the spots needed to capture the third-place finish,” Roesch said. “We really focused our prep discussions on intensity and position racing and they all did a great job.”