Now officially in CHSAA, STEM’s debut performance at the Confluence League XC Championships certainly made quite an impression!!
In the girls race, junior Abby Hullinger went out and led for the first 1.5 miles. 2 runners from DSST-Byers were right on her shoulder, working together, and eventually made their way to the front. Abby finished 3rd overall, and becomes the first girl in STEM history to receive First Team All Conference honors as a CHSAA-member school!! Juniors Paige McEnerny (8th place) and Julia McCallister (11th place) earned Second Team All-Conference honors. The girls finished in 3rd place as a team, behind DSST-Byers and Lotus School For Excellence. This team finish is more impressive in that only 5 girls raced for STEM!
The boys race proved to be quite a showdown. For the first 2.5 miles, sophomore Lucian Kasperek battled back and forth with 2 runners from DSST-Byers. One of the DSST-Byers runners faded, and Lucian battled the other right to the finish line. He finished in 2nd place overall (only 4 seconds out of first), and was followed closely by senior Silas Pacheco, who finished in 4th place. Lucian and Silas become the first boys in STEM history to receive First Team All-Conference honors as a CHSAA-member school!! Senior Jacob McCallister (8th place), freshman Cole Getting (10th place), and Junior Kylen Winslett (11th place) earned Second Team All-Conference honors. The boys team put up a valiant fight, but wound up finishing in second place as a team, only 7 points behind DSST-Byers!!!
The Spartan harriers will race next Thursday at the 3A Region 5 State XC Qualifier at de Koevend Park. This is the first chance in STEM history that our athletes will have the opportunity to qualify for state competition.
