ELSAH - Skies were clear and temperatures were in the low 70s Monday afternoon at the Jersey Invitational meet, held at Principia College's cross-country course, instead of high temperatures and humidity that many meets had to deal with in recent weeks.
On the girls side, freshman Abby Korak (18:40) led a Tiger sweep of the first four places to help EHS to a first-place finish with 17 points; Auburn was second with 90 points, Jersey third at 93, Belleville East fourth at 94, Althoff fifth at 95 and Dupo sixth at 141. Abby Schrobilgen was second for Edwardsville in 18:41, Melissa Spencer (18:42) was third, Jaycie Hudson (19:05) fourth and Maddie Miller (19:36) seventh to round out EHS' scoring runners.
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“We decided to try to run all of our athletes today,” said Edwardsville coach George Patrylak, “just with the conditions we've had the past several weeks. It's the first day to get a nice day in the 70s, some solid footing for the first time in a couple of weeks – we wanted to see where our guys and ladies are at. We had some tough decisions to make; we're doing our annual trip to the Chicago area this weekend; it's the first time we're bringing out ladies and we needed to make sure we've got everyone in the right flights.
Marquette Catholic had one runner each in the boys and girls competitions; freshman Riley Vickery finished 10th in the girls race with a time of 20:10. “Riley ran another nice race,” said Explorer coach Mike Brooks. “This is a good course, a dedicated cross-country course. Principia's done a nice job with it; it's not a terribly easy course – it's a rolling course with a lot of rolling hills and I thought Riley ran a very smart race. She came across the mile in a little more than seven (minutes), not far off from where we wanted her.
“She wanted to finish under 20 (minutes; she finished in 20:10) and she came in not far off from where she wanted to be. That's the fastest she's run all year, so we're really pleased with that.”
“It felt really nice today; it was beautiful weather and it wasn't like raining or too hot today,” Korak said. “Compared to what it's been like, it's been pretty nice. The breeze was nice, it felt great. I felt pretty strong out there; the hills kind of stunk a little bit, but you have to keep pushing and keep going.
“I think we're going to keep pushing ourselves throughout the season and one girl will push the next and it's going to keep going until we're the best we can be, like a team working together.”
“We're in kind of some uncharted water right now (with the Tiger girls),” Patrylak said. “If we can continue to get a progression with the girls, I think we can accomplish some great things by the end of the year. As far as places and efforts, they look great; we just need to solidify that pack a little bit more (on the course). We need our seniors to continue to step it up because we have a very young squad.
“We have a junior, a couple of seniors and everyone else. We need our seniors to continue to be our leaders and we've got to keep progressing from this point.”
GIRLS
Edwardsville, 17; Auburn, 90; Jersey, 93; Belleville East, 94; Belleville Althoff, 95; Dupo, 141
INDIVIDUAL TOP TEN
Abby Korak, Edwardsville, 18:40; Abby Schrobilgen, Edwardsville, 18:41; Melissa Spencer, Edwardsville, 18:42; Jaycie Hudson, Edwardsville, 19:05; Seleiya Wilson, Belleville East, 19:05; April Goetz, Auburn, 19:32; Maddie Miller, Edwardsville, 19:36; Julianna Determan, Edwardsville, 19:48; Victoria Vegher, Edwardsville, 19:57; Riley Vickery, Marquette Catholic, 20:10
OTHER AREA RUNNERS
CIVIC MEMORIAL: Zoey Lewis, 14th (20:39)
EDWARDSVILLE: Kiara Delgado, 12th (20:26); Elise Krone, 15th (20:40); Savannah Brannan, 24th (21:35)
CARROLLTON: Lily Baumgartner, 17th (20:57); Olivia Richey, 32nd (22:40)
JERSEY: Sydney Merle, 25th (21:36); Kaleigh Grace, 26th (21:41); Lexi Liles, 36th (22:59); Kiara Chapman, 39th (23:11); Megan Fraley, 42nd (23:43); Grace Sharich, 46th (24:04) 
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