St. Thomas Aquinas’ Trish Butler is Broward Cross County Coach of the Year
Trish Butler watched as both of her cross country teams finished near the top of the pack at the Class 3A FHSAA state championship in mid-November.
Both St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders’ boys and girls teams led the way among Broward County schools at the final meet of the high school season, with the girls finishing in third place and the boys landing not too far behind in fourth. This comes one year after neither of St. Thomas Aquinas’ teams failed to qualify for the state meet, and each team had just one player advance as an individual.
Butler, the head coach for both teams, is the Miami Herald’s Cross Country Coach of the Year.
Butler’s boys’ team was led by junior Martin Goodwin, the Herald’s Boys’ Cross Country Runner of the Year. He finished fifth at the state race and was the only runner from the county with a sub-16 minute performance (15:57). The Raiders had two other runners finish in the top 50 of the boys’ Class 3A race that had 234 competitors — junior Anthony Herrera was 39th (16:49.5) and sophomore Christopher Adams was 48th (16:55.7).
On the girls’ side, the Raiders had three underclassmen finish among the top-31 in Class 3A. Freshman Grace Finneran was 12th (18:59.6), sophomore Lindsey Duffner 23rd (19:43) and freshman Zoe Giacobbe 31st (19:57.6).
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