Griesenauer Rolls; Kirkwood Does Damage at Parkway Central
Coming out of the woods after the toughest part of the course at Parkway Central, it looked like Holt's Emily Griesenauer had actually started running from there and hadn't actually put down about 2.5 miles before that. With Lindbergh's Abigail Juedemann hot on her tail for most of the race, Griesenauer used an impressive push through the wooded part between 3400 and 4200 and up the biggest hill to put a huge gap on the Flyers Junior. She then coasted down to the finish line and wrapped up a 20 second victory in 19:28. Griesenauer is coming off an 18:57 performance at Forest Park and, as we've said before, looks to be in top form already. She is a sneaky pick to make a jump into the Top 5 at this year's state meet should she continue this run of success. She's already shown us a preview of her plans for the Class 4 Sectional 2 meet, we are now anxious to see her duke it out on the big stage. Juedemann came across the line in an equally impressive 19:48 and Lindbergh put 4 in the Top 10 to take the team title. Marquette was 2nd, led by sophomores Anna Warren (4th) and Victoria Penney (9th). Lila Bensky led Ladue with her 3rd place finish to their 3rd place finish as a team. Francis Howell was 4th as they were again with out senior front-runner Erin Gilbert.
On the boys side, Christian Baker of Kirkwood and Marquette's Nick Warmann duked it out for the individual title. Two of the top boys in the St. Louis area, they pulled the varsity boys race through in 5:05 through the first mile and proceeded to battle throughout. Baker eventually pulled away around the 1.5 mile mark and never looked back. He, too, looked smooth coming out of the woods, but also curious how far back Warmann actually was. Warmann would finish in second in 17:21 a full 24 seconds behind the Junior from Kirkwood. Baker's 16:57 was one headline from the boys race, but Kirkwood showed a glimpse of their plans should they get to the Class 4 Sectional 1 meet, as well. They went 1-3-5-6-7 and scored 22 points to decisively defeat Marquette in 2nd and Ft. Zumwalt West in 3rd. Marquette's 48 were not that far behind, but with only 2 of their boys in the Top 10 individually, they could not match up with the 6 Pioneers that posted Top 10 finishes.