Thomas Peuster and Maggie Ramsey have been leading Mexico cross country all season long and are now the final Bulldogs standing.

The senior Peuster qualified for this third straight state meet after finishing 14th with a time of 17:53.47 in the Class 4 District 3 meet at Parkway Central in Chesterfield, and the freshman Ramsey placed 22nd with a time of 22:06.76. The top 30 runners were named all-district and advanced to the Class 4 state meet on Friday at Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia.

“Looking at the standings going in, we performed about how we were supposed to,” head coach Lucas Breneman said. “It's always nice to get a few more kids out, but it certainly wasn't from lack of effort. The kids ran hard, and we beat the teams we were supposed to.”

Three Mexico boys finished within the top 50 out of 95 runners, and four girls placed in the top 50 out of 95 runners. For the boys, Guy Fairchild finished 46th with a time of 18:58.36, and Andrew Peuster placed 50th with a time of 19:07.61. On the girls side, Sidney Turlington finished 35th with a time of 22:51.49, Viviana Benjamin was 41st with a time of 23:01.43, and Kalea Henneberry raced to a 46th-place time of 23:12.09.

The boys finished eighth out of 13 schools with 220 points, and the girls were seventh out of 13 schools with 205 points.

St. Charles’ Nate Maples won the boys individual district title with a winning time of 17:03.47, and MICDS’s Julia Ray was the top girls finisher with a time of 18:36.64. Lutheran St. Charles won the boys team title with 49 points, and Father Tolton won the girls title with 49 points.

Ramsey is scheduled to run in the girls race at 11:15 a.m. on Friday, and Peuster’s race should start after that at noon.

District boys soccer

Bulldogs shut down in 2nd half, lose 4-0 to Southern Boone to end season

Mexico felt like it was getting its shots through 40 minutes.

After halftime, Mexico mustered four shots against Class 2 District 4 semifinals opponent Southern Boone to lose 4-0 and end its season at 8-16. The No. 2 seed Eagles outshot the No. 6 Bulldogs 34-14 and 19-8 on shots on goal, with goalkeeper Emille Scanavino stopping 15 of them.

Mexico falls short vs Southern Boone in semifinals

Head coach Bill Gleeson said Mexico was right with the Eagles, and overall, put together a better performance than the Bulldogs had in a 5-0 loss at Southern Boone (11-10-1) in the regular season. In the second 40 minutes, and especially after the third goal was scored, Mexico lost some of its hustle.

“It seems like sometimes when we get that third goal scored on us,” Gleeson said. “We just kind of shut down. Toward the end, we just didn’t have that hustle toward the beginning of the game.”

In the 62nd minute, Southern Boone’s Cal Montgomery received the third Eagle popped over the Mexico defense prior to putting in the back of the net from the right side.

Whenever Mexico sent the ball toward Southern Boone’s net, there was an Eagle defender right there to clear it back toward the Mexico side of the field.

“They were winning it in the field and just kicking it right back to us,” Gleeson said. “And then we kick it to the midfield and it’d come right back to us. It was a killer that midfield.”

Southern Boone had a 1-0 in the third minute and then increased it 2-0 in the 39th minute after Mason Ahern was able to knock in a goal past the dives of defender Jaylen Johnson and Scanavino.

That one play just before halftime wasn’t telling of the games and effort from the goalkeeper and Johnson on the back line. Gleeson said Johnson did have a tough assignment with the quick Montgomery.

“They have a super, super fast No. 7,” Gleeson said. “Jaylen was able to at least keep close to him. He had a lot of stops on the sides and was able to transition it out to feet and go up and we had opportunities.”

The 2022 season is over for the Bulldogs but not before Mexico was able to increase its win total from 3-19 a year ago and be the victor in a district game for the first time since 2019 with its 3-2 win against Wright City on Monday. Gleeson said next season will have room for more growing as the Bulldogs bring up its younger players to fill the holes left by the six departing seniors, but good soccer will be “down the road.”

“I appreciated how the boys worked and gave me everything they had all season,” Gleeson said. “We just have a good group of boys all the way down JV through varsity. We’ll miss the seniors, but we’ve got a good group of young guys coming up that I think will be good.”

Mexico defeats Wright City 3-2 in rematch to advance to district semis

For the Mexico boys on Saturday, they thought they should “go for goal.”

That’s what head coach Bill Gleeson told defender Marcos Matuz before he booted a free kick in No. 6 seed Mexico’s 3-2 victory against No. 3 Wright City in the Class 2 District 4 Tournament at Chris Hotop Field in Mexico. Matuz’s goal gave the Bulldogs (8-15) the 2-1 lead at the time before midfielder Gage Walker scored the go-ahead goal at point blank range within the final 10 minutes.

Bulldogs break into semifinals after defeating Wright City

Wright City, after being beaten by Mexico 4-2 in the regular season meet after allowing three second-half goals, outshot the Bulldogs 23-15 while doubling Mexico in shots on goal at 14-7. Despite that, the Bulldog back line, led by defender Declan Gleeson, beefed up the defense in the second half.

Bill Gleeson said it is always difficult to beat a team twice, and Saturday was no different as Wright City (11-9-1) “came off kicking.” On six different instances in the first half, the Wildcats popped a pass over or through the Mexico defense to set up a solo breakaway for, oftentimes, Ricardo Uribe. Uribe scored the game’s first goal in the seventh minute, but Wright City didn’t score its next goal until the 60th minute.

“We talked about how we need to play a little more aggressive in the midfield to take away that ability,” Gleeson said. “They were just trying to chip it over and then run it in. Defense-wise, we talked about keeping the back line solid because I had one of my JV players (freshman Jace DeVault) who is just playing districts now as one of my backs. He was playing a little far back, and he’d leave them on. We just talked about, ‘Hey, make sure you are even with the middles or even a little bit ahead of the middles.’”

Declan Gleeson took a long boot that almost moved past the goalkeeper only for it to be knocked in by Keegan Koons on the rebound to tie the game at 1 in the 35th minute. Eight minutes into the second half, Matuz was awarded a free kick and was wondering what he should do.

“He asked me, ‘Do you want me to go for goal or you want me to make the pass,’” Gleeson said. “I said, ‘Go for goal.’”

From almost midfield, the shot arced over the keeper into the net for the 2-1 Mexico lead. Wright City tied the game at 2 after Andrew Reynolds scored off a cross pass in the 60th minute.

From that point, the game seemed to become even more physical. This didn’t faze Declan Gleeson as his coach and father says he isn’t afraid of a little contact, whether it be from the ball to prevent a goal or from an opposing player to fight for possession or clear the ball.

“It was a very physical game,” Gleeson said. “When you have players that can play physically, which Declan plays a very physical game, that helps out a lot.”

Emille Scanavino finished with 11 saves, and Gleeson had several of his own after throwing his body in front of a shot.

The goalkeepers, including Scanavino weren’t immune to the contact displayed in the game as the Mexico goalie slid down to halt a Wright City breakaway before a Wildcat could record a shot. The Wright City goalkeeper tried to do the same against Walker in the 72nd minute, but Walker executed a juke to the left before pushing in the close-range goal.

“They answered back and then we would answer right back,” Gleeson said.