Festus senior Lucy Boyer won her third Jefferson County Activities Association championship on the 3.1-mile (5K) course at Larry G. Crites Memorial Park on Oct. 17 with a time of 19:32.18.
The Tigers were the defending JCAA champions and have won the last two Class 4 state championships, and Boyer was their top finisher both years, all-state (top 30, third, 19:36.3, 2024; ninth, 19:14.8, 2025).
“Lucy has carried a lot of weight for us for three years,” Festus head coach Wes Armbruster said.
Adysynn Gonzalez set the Herculaneum girls freshman record of 19:06.3 at the Gans Creek Classic in Columbia on Sept. 26, and despite a misstep on the Crites course, she closed to within six seconds of Boyer and finished second in the conference in 19:38.80. Ten of the 35 runners in the girls race were freshmen, and five of those were all-conference (top 15).
“I was behind Lucy, doing good,” Gonzalez said. “I ran to where it was muddy, twisted my ankle in a hole, fought back when another Festus girl tried to get in front of me. It became worse as I kept running, and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m going to get dead last,’ and I pulled it together.”
“It was a story of a bunch of sections in one race,” Herculaneum head coach Kyle Davis said. “She looked like she was falling apart at times, and at times she looked like a machine.”
Tighter than the individual girls finishes were the team scores. Each team can enter seven runners, and the top five scores are tallied for the team score. Five of the top nine runners were Blackcats who won with 28 points, while the Tigers had five of the top 11 and finished second with 31 points.
“It felt amazing, I was happy to cheer the rest of my team on,” Gonzalez said after learning Herky had won.
“It’s bounced around on the girls side quite a bit more than the boys,” said Armbruster about the transition of the conference title. “Herky had an awesome day and has an awesome team. We talked that if we weren’t prepared, they could (take the title).”
The Blackcats were third in the state in Class 3 last year and second in 2024. They’ve won more state titles (11) than all but one other team – West Plains, which has 14. Five Herculaneum runners who competed at state last year helped the Blackcats unseat the defending champions from Festus. Senior Emerson Reeves (fourth, 19:55.13), junior Brylee Wishard (fifth, 20:08.21), junior Amaya Ferguson (ninth, 20:17.51) and junior Aubrianna Shadowens (10th, 20:17.87) can add conference champions to their long list of success at Herculaneum.
Davis sensed something was brewing at practices last week.
“When the athletes are talking about things that the coaches normally talk about, oh boy, you know they want to do something special,” Davis said. “I heard conversations throughout the week. I thought they’re ready to throw the gauntlet down. In my era, Festus has always been the standard. What was most exciting was executing it from the gun.”
Boyer is backed by a cast of state veterans and two of the all-JCAA freshmen. The other scoring runners for the Tigers were sophomore Kyndall Gildea (third, 19:46.90), junior Marisa Peter (sixth, 20:13.89) and freshmen Nora Madden (11th, 20:43.86) and Caroline Beard (12th, 20:52.36).
Last year, the top seven runners at the conference race were from Festus.
“That was something special and something other people were going to make sure didn’t happen again,” said Armbruster, who’s guided Festus to a total of four state championships in cross country and track and field since 2024.
The gap between Herculaneum and Festus was vast in front of the rest of the field. Jefferson was a distant third with 101 points. The Blue Jays also have a talented freshman in Mallory Selsor, who was eighth in 20:16.70, a PR by 30 seconds. Four of the five Jefferson top runners set PRs.
Hillsboro was fourth, one point behind the Blue Jays, and freshman Taylor Mann took the 15th and final all-JCAA place to lead the Hawks with a time of 21:08.19. Windsor posted a team score of 115 for fifth place, and sophomore Jordan Lessard (14th, 21:08.13) was the top Owl.