Article by Grant Mollett, East Ridge High School
Photos courtesy of Grant Mollett and ERHS family and friends
Saint Cloud – September 11, 2021
The East Ridge High School girls’ cross country team competed in the St. Cloud Invitational Meet at St. Cloud High School on Saturday morning. It was a sunny morning and the temperature held steady at about 75 degrees. The course, which was mostly on the athletic fields at St. Cloud High School, was muddy from a late-night hail storm that happened on Friday night. The course was mostly flat and it took the runners for two campus laps that included them circling a pond and running through a small wooded area at the back of the campus. The Knights had competed at St. Cloud last season in a much smaller meet, as the number of teams were limited due to Covid19 restrictions. Last season East Ridge placed fifth out of seven teams. This year, the meet was much larger and the East Ridge girls’ varsity team placed tenth out of twenty complete teams at St. Cloud today.
Girls from 32 different schools throughout Central Florida participated in this morning’s meet. The varsity girls’ race started after the varsity boys’ race ended for a change. So at 8:00 am, the girls were off across the large starting area of St. Cloud High School’s muddy practice football field. The first Knight to cross the finish line, which was on the school’s game field, was junior Sophie Roemmen.
Sophie, who has led the Knights in the first three meets of the season, finished in a time of 21:13! Sophie placed 25th overall out of a field of 160 varsity female runners! Today’s performance was a season-best by six seconds for Sophie!
Freshman Hanna Warren and junior Bre Peine made their way around the track and onto the football field pushing hard to approach the finish line. Hanna finished just one second in front of her teammate and claimed the 46th position in a time of 22:28.
Bre finished in 47th place in a time of 22:29 – a season-best by fifteen seconds and a near two-minute improvement from her performance at St. Cloud last season!
Freshman Neely Lugo was the fourth Knight to cross the finish line this morning. She finished in 64th place and at a time of 23:04. The fifth finisher and final scorer for East Ridge was senior Keira Votava.
Keira finished in 102nd place and in a time of 25:24 – an improvement of more than a minute and a half from last season’s performance at St. Cloud.
The sixth finisher for the Knights was sophomore Lina Maldonado. Lina, in her varsity debut, placed 110th overall and posted a time of 26:04. Her performance this week was nearly a minute improvement from her performance last week!
The seventh finisher for the Knights was freshman J’Mariana Douglas who finished in 123rd place and in a time of 27:19.
