St. Al’s Eldridge, Edwards finish in top five at MAIS Cross Country Championships

Published 9:36 am Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Hendrix Eldridge and Samantha Edwards finished an outstanding cross country season with one last great run together.

The St. Aloysius duo finished three seconds apart, with Eldridge in third place and Edwards in fourth, at the MAIS Class 5A Cross Country Championships Monday at Choctaw Trails in Clinton.

It was the seventh top-five finish in seven races this season for the eighth-grader Eldridge. She won three races and finished this one with a time of 21 miniutes, 1 second.

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Edwards, who won the 2021 Class 5A championship, crossed the line in 21:04. She won two races this season and had her sixth top-five performance.

Simpson Academy freshman Layla Warren won the individiual title with a time of 19:55, and her teammate Lilly Overby was second in 20:41.

Led by its two all-stars, St. Al finished fourth out of nine in the girls’ team standings with 119 points. Julia Tuminello clocked a time of 24:07 to place 32nd out of 95 runners, and Frances Ferrell was 44th in 25:11.

East Rankin Academy had six runners among the top 16 and scored 52 points to beat Columbia Academy for the team title. Columbia also scored 52 points, but the fifth-place finish by East Rankin’s Audrey Mayatte served as the tiebreaker.

Simpson Academy was third in the team standings, with 64 points. In cross country, runners are scored in line with their finishing position — first place receives one point, second place two, and so on — and the lowest team score wins.

In the boys’ Class 5A race, sophomore Dalton Windham was St. Al’s top finisher in 24th place. He had a time of 20:39.

Walker Lambiotte placed 29th in 20:55, Sam Hall was 48th in 22:52, and Jack Dickerson 49th out of 84 runners in 22:55.

Heritage Academy’s Sidney Stegall won the individual championship in 16:17, and Cathedral took the team title with 52 points. Cathedral had four runners among the top 12, led by Alex Monagan’s fifth-place finish.

Silliman Institute placed second out of 11 teams, with 57 points, and Columbia Academy was a distant third with 99. St. Aloysius was eighth, with 187 points.

In the Class 3A boys meet, Porter’s Chapel Academy sophomore Tyler Hatley finished 20th out of 49 runners with a time of 22:55. His teammate Nick Neihaus was 30th in 24:38, John McGee 37th in 25:46, and Joey Courville 44th in 27:44.

PCA totaled 127 points to finish fifth out of five teams. Providence Classical had six of the top 11 runners — including individual champion Micah Glorioso, who had a time of 18:12 — and totaled 24 points to take the team title.