This past Wednesday, the boys’ and girls’ varsity cross country teams traveled to St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Hammond for the STA Invitational. Having not raced since back in September, everyone who ran was well-rested and ready to run fast. The girls’ team placed 4^th overall in the meet and 81% of the girls who ran achieved a seasonal best time. 45% of the girls also ran new career personal records! The Runners of the Week, all of whom set new career personal records, were senior Mikayla Rulh, along with juniors Molly Robert, Camille Patton, and Ashlyn Boyd. Mikayla improved by an impressive 47 seconds, running a time of 18:36 and earning her a place in the record books as the second fastest female runner in the history of the Newman cross country program. Molly placed 3^rd on the Newman girls team, beating her previous personal record by 42 seconds. Camille beat her previous personal record by 11 seconds and Ashlyn by 18 seconds. This also meant Ashlyn beat her seasonal best record by 2:21! As for the boys, the team finished 3^rd overall and also boasted some notable new times. 90% of the boys who competed ran a new seasonal best time and 65% of the boys who ran achieved new career personal records. The Runners of the Week for the boys were seniors John Gainey and Conor Zura, as well as juniors Sebastian Rouse and Christopher Hebert. John ran a time of 16:50, a 12-second improvement, and Conor ran 16:46, a 40-second improvement. Both John and Conor received t-shirts for finishing within the top ten overall times in the race. Sebastian improved by eleven seconds and Christopher improved by nine seconds in his first race back from an injury earlier this season. Both teams will compete in Newman’s Pre-District Tune-Up Race coming up on Thursday this week.