* Jack Desroches won his first Louisiana state title on Monday
Photo Credit: Chris Wells/MileSplit
- - -
Historic would be the appropriate term for how to describe what the New Orleans Jesuit boys program, ranked No. 2 in the country by MileSplit, accomplished on Monday at the Louisiana High School Athletic Association Division I state cross country championships.
They were perfect.
To be precise, the Blue Jays scored a perfect 15 points on a sloppy Northwestern University course -- which received a heavy dose of rain prior to the races on Monday.
They were perfect at a mile, they were perfect at two miles and ultimately, they were perfect at three miles.
Jesuit senior Jack Desroches ran a winning time of 14:46.00, which was a new course record, and then he was followed by sophomore Brady Mullen, senior Robert Buisson, senior Patrick Dowd and junior Michael Vocke.
"It's very cool for them, because they have been working really hard," Jesuit coach Cullen Doody said. "I'm happy for the guys. But I remember telling them two years ago, 'We can perfect score this meet.' That was two years ago and we were OK. It's cool to see that it happened."
The Blue Jays averaged a three-mile time of 15:03, which was a full 44 seconds faster than second-place Brother Martin, which scored 63.
In fact, Jesuit's sixth and seventh runners, sophomore Leland Crawford and junior Lucas Sampedro, were through the finish before Brother Martin's second and third and Ruston's entire starting lineup.
Monday's finish improved upon Jesuit's championship win in 2021, which saw the program score 22 points in Class 5A (Louisiana has since moved to a divisional structure). A year ago -- on a dryer course -- this same team averaged 15:40 for three miles on the same course.
"We knew it was possible," Doody said.
Four runners from the team's top seven return to Jesuit's program in 2023.
Next up for the Jesuit boys is the Garmin RunningLane Cross Country Championships, a national championship race which takes place on Dec. 3 in Huntsville, Alabama.