Freshman Jack Wallace holds off a Holy Cross Tiger down the stretch of the District 9-5A Championship on Wednesday, Oct. 25.

Freshman Jack Wallace, senior Jordan Tufts, and sophomore Brandon Hall finished 6th, 9th, and 10th, respectively, at the District 9-5A championship on Wednesday, Oct. 25, leading the Blue Jays to a third place overall finish.

Wallace blazed through the three-mile City Park course with a time of 16:04, followed by Tufts at 16:21 and Hall at 16:24. After that it was senior Michael Williams (16:46) and junior Harrison LeBlanc (16:51), followed by seniors Jonathan Arnold (17:20) and Brenner Rauch (17:40).

Wallace, Hall, Williams, and Leblanc all broke their personal records (PRs).

“I’m proud of our guys,” said Coach Rudy Horvath ’86. “I can’t ask for much more than that. When four of your top five run PRs in the district meet, that’s a solid outing.”

While he was pleased with his team’s performance, Horvath spent almost as much time after the race talking about the crowd.

“I’m humbled by the crowd we had out here. What a great atmosphere to race in. I guarantee it helped our guys, especially down the home stretch. My sincere thanks to all the students who came out, and to my fellow coaches who brought their entire teams to cheer us on.”

Indeed, if the there was a trophy for crowd size, the Jays would have won hands-down. In addition to the healthy student turnout, several faculty members and administrators showed up–Jesuit president Fr. Christopher Fronk, S.J., Jesuit principal Peter Kernion ’90, athletic director Dave Moreau, Fr. Paul Shaughnessy, S.J., Fr. Kevin Dyer, S.J., John Lavie ’83, Kevin Murphy ’00, Rob Weiss ’87, and Mike Prados ’83 among them. And, in what has become somewhat of a tradition, coaches Chris Jennings ’78 and Jonathan Hernandez ’00 brought the basketball team out to show its support before returning to the Birdcage for practice. They were joined by the wrestling team, which also came out in force. Meanwhile, the Office of Institutional Advancement sent an email blast to cross country alumni that drew several former runners out. Tom Bagwill, Jeremy Reuther ’01, Mat Grau ’68, and Jack Culotta, Jr. ’13 represented the Office of Institutional Advancement at the meet.

“I bet we had at least 100 students out there,” said Horvath. “And probably another 100 supporters.”

Next up for the Jays is the Regional Meet on Friday, Nov. 3. Race time is 4:00 p.m. at City Park.