Youth Cross-Country for Schools in St. Louis City
About Youth Cross-Country
Cross-Country is a wonderful activity for kids because the sport teaches them the value of continuous self-improvement. When they train and compete, kids will set personalized goals to improve every day, and they will work toward those goals by competing against themselves. Beyond the individual benefits, cross-country is a team sport, and it is all-inclusive; no one sits the bench, because in cross country, everyone runs.
Season & Suggested Tryout Dates
Cross-Country is a fall sport. If you want to bring Youth Cross-Country to your St. Louis City school, we suggest hosting tryouts during the week of August 29th.
Upcoming Meets – 2022
- Meet 1: September 13th at 5pm at Lafayette Park
- Meet 2: October 4th at 5pm at Benton Park
- Meet 3: October 25th at 5pm at Francis Park
Looking for your school’s game & practice schedules? Visit our Schedules & Results page.
Rules of Play
Scoring & Race Length
Races are scored by assigning a point value to the finishing place of the runner. Only the top 5 runners “score” for their team. The sixth and seventh placed runners also receive a score. Their points can be valuable since they may increase the score of an opposing team by placing in front of that team’s top five runners. If a runner finishes first, they will earn 1 point; if a runner finishes 55th, they earn 55 points.
A perfect score is 15 points, with the top five runners occupying the first five finishing positions.
The lowest score wins. Schools who do not have a team of at least five runners of each gender are removed from the results for scoring purposes, or will follow the ghost scoring method.
If a meet allows more than seven runners in a race, the runners that placed eighth or higher within their team are removed from the results for scoring purposes.In the event of a tie between two or more teams, the place of the sixth place runners are compared.
Two races will be held at each meet.
- Boys will begin at 5pm
- Girls will begin at 5:30pm
The race length is 3 kilometers or approximately 1.86 miles.
Thank You to our Cross Country Sponsor!
As a new nonprofit, we rely on the support of volunteers, community supporters and corporate sponsors across the St. Louis region.