Cardinals Cross Country Off To Fast Start In 2022
The Mineral Area Cardinals Cross Country teams competed in their first meet of the 2022 season on Friday, August 26th at the Heartland Juco Relays in Normal, Illinois. The race format was different than the standard 5- or 8-kilometer races, with each of the seven competing schools running as many two- person relay teams as they wanted. Each of the women's relay teams ran 3 X 1-mile per runner for a total of six miles, while the men ran 4 X 1-mile for an 8-mile total time. Top 10 finishing two-person teams for each gender won t-shirts, with the Running Cards having five different relay teams winning awards.
The Lady Cards finished with 3 winning teams with Julia Boyher and Riley Petsch placing 3rd in a time of 38:55 for 6-miles, while Abi Dean and Rachel Wilson came in 7th (40:58) followed closely by Ava Laut and Laura Maddox who placed 8th (41:31).
For the men, Brad Ahrens and Devin St. Clair finished in 3rd place with a time of 41:02 for 8 miles, with Elijah Myers and Nathan St. Clair combining to place 10th in a time of 43:16. Complete results for the MAC runners were:
Men Women
Brad Ahrens/ Devin St. Clair-3rd- 41:02 Julia Boyher/Riley Petsch-3rd-38:55
Elijah Myers/Nathan St. Clair-10th-43:16 Abi Dean/Rachel Wilson-7th-40:58
Will Pierce/Levi Wiegand-14th-44:49 Ava Laut/Laura Maddox-8th-41:31
Grayson Knernschield/Lucas Smith-17th-45:47 Melayna Brown/Allison Recar-14th-44:42
Hunter Tallent/David DeClue-23rd-47:21
The next competition will be this Friday, August 29th, at the Redhawk Invitational hosted by Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau.