The cross country program continued a remarkable season on Monday with several standout performances in a home meet on the very busy JPII athletics campus, which also had girls tennis, volleyball and boys soccer competition going on.
In the largest meet JPII ever has hosted — in addition to the Saints, there were eight other schools competing, with a total of 140 individual runners — freshman Gabe Lewis grabbed the limelight with an impressive performance as he ran a smart race throughout and utilized a dominant finishing kick to win the boys race in 19 minutes, 15 seconds, a PR by two seconds.
That, combined with a fourth-place showing by senior Alex Peterson (19:54) and a 13th-place finish by sophomore Estevan Morales (20:52), propelled JPII to third place with 79 points, behind only Parrott (67) and Wayne Christian (77). For the first time ever, JPII finished ahead of Wayne Country Day (fourth, 89) and Epiphany (sixth, 117). Greenfield was fifth (115), with Christ Covenant (202), Greenville Christian (206) and Liberty Christian (210) rounding out the field. It was by far the Saints’ best finish in a large meet ever.
“That was a very smart and super-impressive run by Gabe,” coach Joe Corley said. “We talked about what he needed to do before the race, and he carried out the plan perfectly. I can’t say enough about how hard the whole team has worked this season. We planned for this and it’s exciting to see those plans come to fruition. The next few weeks (CPIC championships on Oct. 20, state meet Oct. 28) will be really fun to watch.”
Tyler Moore was 25th (21:52), followed by Miguel Morales (38th, 23:04), Paul Doban (52nd, 24:36) and Davis Walsh (55th, 24:59).
In the girls race, Emma Anderson led JPII’s effort as she took 32nd in 28:49. Freshmen Jaleeyah Isler and Isabella Calix also competed well for the Saints, who did not have enough runners to post a team score. Parrott easily won the team title with 27 points, ahead of runner-up Greenfield (66).
