JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Seven seconds.
That’s all the time that separated Fatima’s first five scoring runners in the girls’ Class 2 state cross country race Saturday at Oak Hills Golf Center.
It was pointed out on the https://mo.milesplit.com discussion board by Dean Hays that this is a record – eight seconds rounded up – that eclipses the previous best spread of 12 seconds by the Kickapoo boys in 1991. The best girls’ spread was 17 seconds by Lee’s Summit North last year.
The Comets rolled to a victory with 43 points, placing their first five in the top 16, and all seven runners were in the top 30.
“We had a couple girls that joined the team this year and really impacted us,” Fatima coach Marcus Bridges said. “We had three freshmen in the top five and they just gelled well with the older athletes and managed to pack up early on this season and just continued to push that throughout.”
Junior Riley Caminiti led the Comets to the finish in ninth, and then it was freshmen Madison Day and Anna Massman in 10th and 13th, respectively.
“They’ve been packed up tight all year. They push each other and stay with each other,” Bridges said. “They just find each other early. That’s the goal. I can’t be happier about that. That’s just incredible. We were hoping to get a 15-second split, and we thought that was crazy.”
The Fatima girls were making their third consecutive trip. The Comets, ninth in 2012, had never secured a trophy in 12 previous trips to state. The boys were at state for the sixth consecutive season, having earned third-place trophies in each of the last two seasons.
“On the boys’ side we have some really good senior leadership and they taught the younger guys how to practice and how to push themselves. Just a year’s more maturity made a difference on the boys’ side,” Bridges said. “The boys won every meet this season, and the girls took second at one meet this season and won the rest. It’s just always competition between the boys and girls – who is going to outshine the other. So they’ve absolutely pushed each other, and they cheer each other on.”
Caleb Schroeder had been running all season in the No. 6 slot, but he found a way to move up at the state meet and finish fourth for the Comets, scoring critical points at 39th (17:55), which was adjusted to 22nd and helped the Comets tally 73 points.
Bridges said the addition of some larger meets like the Capital City XC Challenge and Hancock Invitational gave his runners an idea of the atmosphere they could expect at the state meet.
“We ran a few big meets this year that helped,” Bridges said. “We ran Capital City here which had a big atmosphere to it and Hancock, which had a bigger atmosphere to it. It was our first year to run that meet. It gave us different looks, and we got to see different people. It just felt bigger for our kids.”
The Herculaneum boys won four of the last six Class 2 state titles but missed the trophy stand for the first time since 2006. The girls, which won six of the last seven titles, were able to extend their trophy streak to nine consecutive years with a fourth-place finish.