Royal Oak Shrine Wins Cross Country Regionals

While Royal Oak Shrine’s cross country team has had an eventful season, the Knights accomplished their biggest goal of the year Saturday by defending their regional championships.

Shrine’s girls had a low score of 24 points – enough to beat the rest of the field combined – and the boys led the pack with 52 at Goodells County Park near Port Huron. It was the fourth consecutive regional title for the girls, while the boys have two in a row.

“We try to be at our best when regionals roll around,” Coach Wright Wilson said. “It’s an important meet for us, because it’s the one that determines whether our team will qualify for the state championship.”

Shrine’s girls blitzed the regional field with all crossing the line among the top 16 of 54 finishers. Madelyne Luddy was the individual winner 20:55, followed closely by Caitlin Snyder (2nd/20:59) and Morgan Button (4th/21:04). Gabby Schmidt (9th) and Maddie Mehall (10th) also scored for the Lady Knights, while Gen Schmidt (15th) and Grace Nagle (16th) also had solid races. It was the fastest race of the year for Snyder, Button, Gabby Schmidt and Mehall.

On the boys’ side, Shrine had three finishers in the top ten, with Ben Kendell (2nd/17:06), Matt Sutton (3rd/17:23) and Matt Arce (8th/18:23). Dominic Cardelli (19th), Ted Chase (28th), Kyle Pawloski (30th) and Scott Proschek (41st) completed the Knights lineup. Cardelli had his best time of the year, at 19:34.

“We had not lost to any of our regional opponents during the season, but by all means nothing was automatic,” Wilson said. “We needed some of the guys to step up and they were able to match up well with our opponents man-to-man.”

The state finals will be held next Saturday at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn. Shrine is hoping to meet or better their team finishes from last year, when the girls were seventh and the boys placed 14th.