Baton Rouge junior LA Lucy Thomas closed the gap on St. Joseph's Michelle Daigle in the D1 girls' LHSAA State Cross Country Championship, and then she passed Daigle, coming off one of the best regular seasons in Louisiana cross country history, enroute to winning her first state championship. In doing so, Thomas pulled off the upset of the day in Natchitoches.
In the end, it was Thomas coming through the line at 17:25 followed by Daigle, who was 19 seconds behind her.
"Just knowing the conditions were not ideal and knowing our competition was going to be tough, it almost made it less pressure and it was so much fun to get out here and race even in these terrible conditions," Thomas said. "It distracted me from the pain, and knowing I was the underdog made me want to prove myself even more and that's all I thought about."
Thomas saw the near 100-meter gap between her and Daigle around mile two and decided to make her move.
"Going back to the beginning, I saw that gap forming and I said I can't so that second mile I closed that 100-meter gap," Thomas said. "When I passed her, I knew that was my moment and there was not going back from that. So, I had to make my move there."
"I came out here with a little more confidence than I probably should have," Daigle said. "I hit a block when she passed me. She is a great competitor, and she is going to go on to do great things, too. I'm excited to see what the future holds for her. She has been someone great to race with my whole high school career."
While everything went right for Daigle during the regular season, Thomas had to overcome some adversity early in the season.
"I had a really, really, great summer training, then I started to feel some really annoying pain in my foot," Thomas said. "They told me it was a stress reaction in my second metatarsal. So, I had to take three weeks off and then took a week to ease back into running. It's been annoying trying to come back from that but knowing I can start there and come here and do this makes me excited for next season and what I can accomplish."
While Daigle did not have the individual performance that she wanted, Monday was bittersweet. The sweet part was leading St. Joseph's to their ninth straight consecutive state championship.
"It feels great my senior year to go out this way," Daigle said. "After last year, I came back as the No. 1 returner on the team. And I just made it my goal that I was going to lead this team. We came out with every article saying that we weren't going to be able to keep up with what we had. We lost multiple girls who were collegiate level runners, to come out here and beat the odds and win by more than we did last year with that type of a team...I think it shows the training and hard work we put into it."
St. Joseph's won the girls' team title for the ninth consecutive year. The Stickers scored 58 points. Mt. Carmel, who scored 99 points, was the runner-up for the second consecutive year. The Cubs has three runners in the top ten--Stella Junius (No. 5, 18:48), Lucy Quintana (No. 7, 18:56), and Mary Quintana (No. 9, 19:06).
Other runners in the top ten included Northshore freshman Grace Keene (No. 3, 18:25), St. Amant's Ella Willoughby (No. 4, 18:47), Ruston's Hallie Hebert (No. 6, 18:55), SJA's Emmaline Ritter (No. 8, 19:05), and Byrd's Anna Lake Watts (No. 10, 19:06).
"She had a phenomenal season," St. Joseph head coach Mark LaHaye said of Daigle. "She was ready to go. Maybe too excited about it, I don't know. She went out hot. She was scorching it then she sort of fell apart at the end."
Daigle will not turn her attention to track, where the disappointment from the Monday's state cross country meet will give her a little motivation going into the indoor and outdoor season. But there is also the next chapter to think about. She will take an official visit at LSU this weekend.
We asked her what she will miss the most about the St. Joseph's XC program.
"I think I'm going to miss the family aspect of it," Daigle said. "I mean it really is a family. That's what we are. We build each other up. Nothing about this sport is easy and never will be, but surrounding ourselves with these types of people and creating a family atmosphere really is what I think sets us apart from other teams."
