At the start of his first cross country season, Luke Hoefferle, freshman, quickly advanced to be one of MHS’ top varsity runners for the cross country team.
Mike Ebert, a head cross country coach, has been involved in Hoefferle’s athletic career prior to this season even starting.
“The coaches already knew he had had good race times in middle school, and with previously coaching his older brother, we knew he was going to be pretty fast,” Ebert said.
And they were right.
Ebert said Hoefferle was moved up from j.v. to varsity after his first race, which he placed first in with a time of 11:59 for two miles, and he has been performing successfully ever since.
At the All STL Suburban Conference Championships on Saturday, Oct. 14, racing for varsity, Hoefferle placed second for MHS with a time of 17:45. His time was the fastest time for all the boy freshman racers at that race.
Overall, his best 5k time in a race this season was 17:23 in the TRXC Border Wars at Principia College, an all boys race.
“He’s a pretty calm racer, which is a good thing,” Ebert said. “When things get intense, he stays calm which has helped him do such a good job.”
Ebert said he has also been impressed with Hoefferle’s ability to be honest with himself as he analyzes his performances after races.
“He’ll have races where he’ll say to himself things such as ‘I could have done this better’,” Ebert said. “That’s how you learn. You don’t learn when everything goes smoothly every time.”
Hoefferle said he started running cross country in fifth grade, originally getting into the sport as he aspired to be like his older brother, Ryan.
Upon starting high school, Hoefferle said he started to take cross country a lot more seriously.
“I find it fun to push myself and try to be the best that I can be,” Hoefferle said. “I like to keep an open mind and positive attitude towards the sport. I take cross country day by day and really try to not get myself down when something goes wrong, and instead, move forward.”
On a typical training day, Hoefferle focuses on his diet, eating carbs with every meal. After school, he participates in team practice and stretches once he gets home, which he said is necessary to his performance. Finally, he gets a good night’s sleep.
“I think what keeps me most dedicated is that cross country keeps me very disciplined,” Hoefferle said. “It’s not always the most fun when I’m running, but when I go home, the accomplishment of running motivates me to get other tasks done.”
Dennison Harris, junior, runs with Luke on the cross country team.
“Luke pushes the entire team because the faster the people we have on the team, the more we all want to do well in competitions,” Harris said. “He plays an important role in the really good varsity team we have this year.”
Harris said that in a freshman 5k race this year, Hoefferle placed second with a time of 18:38, which is one of the best performances they’ve ever had in that race.
“It’s always motivating to see new talent coming in that keeps the future of the team looking good,” Harris said.
