Photo shows last year's St. Bernard Girls' Cross Country team.
CULLMAN – Webster’s Dictionary defines the word dynasty as a family, team, etc., that is very powerful or successful over a long period of time. Here in Cullman County we simply refer to the St. Bernard Cross Country team.
“The girls will be going for their third straight state championship in the 1A-2A division of AHSAA cross country,” said proud St. Bernard Prep head coach William Calvert. “They were also state runners-up in 2012 and 2013.”
There is a buzz on the St. Bernard Prep campus as the Lady Saints are in preparations to attempt a state title three-peat. Fourteen girls will attempt this impressive feat with three seniors, two juniors, two sophomores, two freshmen and five eighth graders.
“We are returning everyone from last year’s championship team including individual champion Ivy Edge and all-state performers Jaden Edge and Leahrose Mami,” Calvert said.
Keeping pace is the boys’ team who will field 20 team members including four seniors, a trio of juniors as well as a trio of sophomores, two freshmen, five eighth graders and three seventh graders.
“The boys’ team were runners-up in state last year to Cold Springs,” said Calvert. “They were also runners-up in 2012. Once again it looks like Cold Springs is the favorite, but we will be trying our best to give them a run for the blue map trophy. We return four out of our top seven runners from last year including the individual runner-up at state, senior Casey Guthery.”
When asked about his team as a whole, Calvert could not say enough great things about the group of young men and women, as well as community support, that he and the cross country team have at St. Bernard.
“We are a close-knit team. We really emphasize team goals over the individual goals. We promote a family atmosphere and have great support from our parents. We also emphasize lifelong fitness through running. Many of our parents are runners. We also have adult runners from the community that invest time to support our program. They volunteer at races, summer camps and help maintain the trails on campus. It’s really a community effort.”
Back-to-back fourth-place finishes coupled with a pair of second place finishes for the girls over the last four years and back-to-back second place finishes for the boys in consecutive years would have some people saying that St. Bernard was the dominate force in 1A-2A Cross Country, but Calvert always sees room for improvement.
“I wouldn’t say we are dominate since we don’t win every meet. I would say our program is solid. We expect to compete for sectional and state championships every year. It’s the mindset of the kids. They want to be a part of something special. Success breeds more success, if you continue to do the right things and stay hungry for excellence. As coaches we expect consistency in training that begins in the summer with base mileage. We offer summer camps that can jump start that effort so runners will be ready for fall training. We are fortunate to have a great training site (trails)on campus that allows us to implement variety in our workouts. Early season we do a lot of hill workouts which promote toughness or ‘callousing’ to pain. You have to learn to manage pain to be a good distance runner. Late in season we do a lot of speed workouts similar to what we do in the track season.”
You can call it what you want, domination, a dynasty or phenomenal but this sports reporter calls the last four years of St. Bernard Cross Country simply amazing.
Stay connected to The Cullman Tribune/CullmanSense for season-long coverage of St. Bernard’s quest for yet another blue map.
Copyright 2016 Humble Roots, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
