It may surprise many that decorated distance runner and beloved coach, Nathan Labus, has never won a cross-country state championship at St. Thomas. That is until now. The early mornings of waking up at five A.M. to run eight miles. The hot afternoons of running in the 105-degree Texas heat. The endless, unseen dedication put in by the cross-country program has paid off. For many, this achievement may mean very little as cross country is one of the least appreciated sports at St. Thomas, however, the raw numbers put up were incredibly impressive.
“I am extremely proud and impressed with the work these boys have put in behind the scenes. Their dedication to make each other better every single day is inspiring.” Coach Labus said.
The TAPPS state championship is broken up into divisions, with 6A being the largest and most competitive. There are seven runners from each school that participate rounding up to 85 total runners. Only the top five scores are calculated into the final team score. Regardless, all seven of St. Thomas’ runners placed in the top 20, something that no other school was able to accomplish. The race was run in a five-kilometer format, or just about 3.1 miles for us Americans. All of St. Thomas’ runners also finished the race in 18 minutes or better which means no one ran slower than an average 5:45 minute mile. This is an extraordinary feat, especially considering that Benjamin Lauzon was the school’s only senior STH runner at the state meet.
If you take a look back in history, St. Thomas has not won a cross-country state championship since 2004, 19 years ago. To put it into perspective, This was before any of our current runners were even born. Coach Labus was an assistant coach, and Mr. Nash was teaching at a junior high in Cy-Fair.
The runners in attendance were Wyatt Johnson ‘25, David Carbajal ‘26, Jaden Stephenson ‘27, Alexander Lauzon ‘26, Benjamin Lauzon ‘24, Michael Kiefer ‘25, and Bryce Farrell ‘27. With only one senior to lead them, it is extremely impressive that the runners were able to stay focused on the goal of winning the state championship. Although it may have been hard to win this year with a large amount of underclassmen, they are certainly set up for success in the future. Six out of seven of the runners will be returning next year with high hopes of a repeat championship.
Overall, the unseen dedication put in by the runners, (and their parents who also woke up at five in the morning to drive them to school) was the proper recipe for success for this special cross-country team.
