Cloud 9? St. Joseph’s Academy Working To Extend its Consecutive Stretch of State Cross-Country Titles
by: William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
For three years Michelle Daigle has been a strong cog in three of St. Joseph Academy’s eight consecutive Division I state cross-country championships.
Each year enabled Daigle to learn from a different group of experienced runners that helped show her the team’s culture and continue the Redstickers’ winning ways.
Daigle, one of six seniors on this year’s team, is SJA’s clear-cut leader on a team that graduated five of its top seven runners from last year’s state title team.
“It’s really exciting to lead and be in the older group,” said Daigle, who is taking an official visit to South Carolina this weekend and will also visit LSU and Ole Miss before making a decision in November. “I’ve come from being a freshman to rotating with different people throughout the years. It’s exciting to be the leader and I’m trying to do everything I can to push everybody to be the best they can.”
SJA’s veteran coach Mark LaHaye has witnessed his share of team leaders over the course of his previous 11 seasons. What he’s seen from Daigle, the team’s top returning runner with a fifth-place showing in last year’s state meet, has been exemplary for a team that’s going through a bit of a transition with new faces looking to fill prominent roles.
“When she (Daigle) finished last cross country season, she never stopped,” said LaHaye, who has guided SJA to its current streak of eight straight state titles, starting in 2016. “She was training hard, and the other seniors were training behind her. She started working out more, going to a gym. Then some others started following.
“Some of the sophomores and juniors started following and now six of them are going to the gym twice a week at 5:30 before school,” LaHaye said. “She really took a leadership role. She’s run in the top seven for three years, she always had those seniors looking out for her. Now that role is flipped and she’s doing a great job with it.”
SJA, the unanimous No. 1 ranked team in the Louisiana Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association’s Large Schools poll, began the 2024 season with a successful showing last week in the Episcopal Round Table Run.
The Redstickers outpaced a field that included Mt. Carmel, Ruston, E.D. White, and Dutchtown with Daigle negotiating sloppy conditions at Baton Rouge’s Highland Road Park with a time of 17 minutes. 58.57 seconds for second place.
Sophomore Charlotte Beck, who finished No. 25 at the state meet, followed Daigle in fifth (20:05.81), with senior Sara Pasquier (7th, 20:10.44), sophomore Hope Lemoine (8th, 20:10.99) and seniors Emmaline Ritter (9th, 20:14.87) and Melia Hooper (12th, 20:26.51), helping the team to win the meet.
“Last year’s depth went very far,” Pasquier said. “This year’s it’s more of a battle. It’s exciting to have that challenge. Sometimes it was more of a given that we were going to go to state and win. This year we have to put in some more work, but I think everyone is excited to step up to the challenge, especially because these girls haven’t really done this yet. They haven’t been in this situation yet and they’ve stepped up and it’s been great so far.”
Daigle said a victory in the first meet of the season sent a distinct message about the team’s prospects this season.
“It’s good to come out this early in the season and show people that we can come back every year and do the same thing that we’ve always done,” she said. “That’s exciting to come out of the gate and prove everybody wrong.
“No one’s really that nervous,” Daigle said. “That’s what is going to take this group to another level. No one’s scared to go and try to take that role and everyone’s excited about it. Confidence comes with racing more.”
SJA continues its schedule and the bigger picture of piecing together a team that for another run at a state championship when the Redstickers travel to the Lafayette Christian Academy Invitational. The competition will take place at 8 a.m. at Sievers Airfield in Duson.
SJA’s schedule includes its own invitational at Highland Park on Oct. 5, less than a month before the East Baton Rouge Metro Championships on Nov. 2. That all leads up to the LHSAA state meet at Northwestern State on Nov. 18.
“I love being a part of this program and the tradition that we have,” Ritter said. “One thing we talked about at our retreat was supporting the legacy we’ve had here. I heard of the cross country team when I was younger in the fifth and sixth grade. I wanted to be a Redsticker. It’s just amazing.”
LaHaye compared the challenge this year’s team faces to that of his first team in 2013. They also were tasked with replacing a senior-laden lineup, building around a standout senior and promising freshman, and producing a team that was third at state.
The following season, with a foundation of seniors that had developed through competition, the Redstickers were state champions.
“We’re definitely not as stacked as we were last year,” LaHaye said. “Last year we had an A team and a B team. We’re not there yet. It’s not going to surprise me that five out of our top seven are seniors, but it will be seniors that hadn’t run.”
Daigle is the reigning Outstanding Runner on the Baton Rouge Advocate’s 2023 All-Metro Cross Country team. She was joined on the first team by four graduating seniors – Grace Reinhoff (3rd at state), Elise Brown (6th at state), Hannah Vaughn, and Kaitlyn Francise.
Two other graduating seniors, Julia Monzon and Madison Manino, were among a group of five runners selected as honorable mention. They were joined on the team by Pasquier, returning junior Tiana Khuri, Hooper, and rising senior Ainsley Brignac.
“Last year was my first to run cross country at SJA,” Ritter said. “I got back into the sport after playing soccer. Now I know how to race. It’s more of a leadership role. I’m kind of standing in the No. 4 spot. It’s been a lot of fun. I’m happy about it.”
Pasquier finds herself in more of a leadership role as one of the team’s six seniors. She also believes the goal of extending the program’s state-title streak to nine is something this year’s team embraces.
“I want to help create more of a team aspect which has been really big this year,” she said. “I would also like to improve place-wise and score higher than I did last year.
“It (current stretch of state titles) is really an important thing to think about,” she said. “You’re doing it for the team, but it’s way deeper than your one year. It’s eight year’s worth of girls and you’re carrying on their legacy, not just your own. It really means a lot and the team aspect here shines through.”
The trio of Daigle, Brignac, and Ritter were three-fourths (the other being Vaughn) to help SJA capture both the LHSAA indoor and outdoor state championship in the 4×800 relay. Daigle was also second in the Class 5A state outdoor 3200 meters and third in the 800.
With Daigle, who’s also placed third and seventh during her career at the state cross country meet, being such an established competitor, the test for LaHaye becomes to try and align the right runners in the right places.
With Beck the only other runner for the Redstickers to place at last year’s state meet, LaHaye will have to acclimate a capable roster to the heat of regular season competition with the hopes of peaking in November.
“All four years, I’ve been here for half of that legacy,” Daigle said of the school’s current state championship stretch. “I’m just going to do everything I can to lead, and to push myself as hard as I can to lead by team.”