BETHALTO - Civic Memorial's Jackson Collman was the overall winner of the boys race, while both the Eagles and Edwardsville won the small and large school divisions of the Madison County boys cross country meet ran Tuesday afternoon at the Bethalto Sports Complex.
The Tigers won the large school division with 47 points, while Highland was second with 61 points, Alton came in third with 101 points, fourth place went to Triad with 114 points, Granite City was fifth with 149 points and Collinsville was sixth with 166 points. CM took the small school division with 61 points, while Father McGivney Catholic was second with 212 points and Metro-East Lutheran was third with 269 points.
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The race was run as a combined race involving all nine schools, with the results being divided up into small and large schools after the race.
"It was nice to get the opportunity to run with the small schools," said Edwardsville head coach George Patrylak. "We haven't had the chance to do that for a few years, and there was great, top-notch talent in both races."
Patrylak felt that the race was closer than what the overall scores indicated, and he gave the Eagles and their head coach, Jake Peal, much credit for their race plan.
"It was probably a little bit closer than the scored indicates," Patrylak said, "(CM) ran an excellent race today, and upfront, they're doing a great job. I personally think that coach Jake Peal is one of the most underrated coaches in the state of Illinois. He's such a great role model for the shape he's in, and his finishing times in his own races. He's a class act guy."
The Tigers changed up some of their strategy for the race, with the emphasis being on finding the top seven runners that'll race for the team when the IHSA postseason starts later this month.
"We had a little bit different philosophy on the boys side," Patrylak said. "We need to find out who we can count on in the postseason, so we can start to put a little bit of pressure on those guys hoping to crack our top seven and make our postseason roster. Jacob's (Grandone) getting back to his form from last year, and fortunately, it's coming at the right time. I personally thought that Ben Perulfi ran the race of the day."
In the small school race, the Eagles swept the top three spots, with Collman the winner, with a time of 16:10.5, with Justice Eldridge second at 16:32,8 and Lucas Naugle third at 17:06.7. A pair of runners from East Alton-Wood River, Aiden Loeffelman and Noah Mason, were fourth and fifth respectively, with times of 17:21.8 and 18:04.1, Gabe Roberts of CM was sixth at 18:09.8, with teammate Trevor Kroeschel seventh at 18:17.1, and a trio of McGivney runners, Liam Boeving, Evan Rybak and Nolan Shearer, rounded out the top ten, with Boeving in at 18:33.1, Rybak's time being 18:47.5 and Shearer coming home at 18:50.3.
Along with the top five, the Eagles had Deacon Anderson in at 19:11.6 and Mason Walker had a time of 20:08.2. Alongside the top three, Galen Kohlbrecher of the Griffins was in at 19:00.1, Wyatt Biermann was in at 19:33.9 and Colin Moore had a time of 19:59.2. Metro-East's top runner was Grayson Wyatt, with a time of 19:03.1, with J.J. Lostutter in at 20:18.4, Blake Schaper was clocked in 20:26.1, Cody Steele had a time of 26:14.6, Louis Maine came in at 29:03.0 and Ethan Schumacher's time was 32:21.2.
Among the individual runners besides the top two from EAWR, Roxana's Chris Holbrook came in at 20:42.0, Josh Kreintner of Marquette Catholic came in at 20:46.9, Jared Udy of Maryville Christian was in at 20:54.9, Marquette's Daniel Kline had a time of 20:55.5, the Shells' Dane Slayden was timed in 22:38.7 and Ryan DeClue of the Explorers had a time of 23:04.0.
Triad's Andrew Pace won the large school race with a time of 16:15.9, with Thomas Westbrook of Granite City second at 16:33.1, third place went to Grandone at 16:36.0, Perulfi was fourth at 16:39.9, in fifth place was Highland's Ethan Smith at 16:46.8, the Tigers' Hugh Davis was sixth at 16:46.8, teammate Jack Draper was seventh at 16:50.1, Highland's Cole Basden was eighth with a time of 16:56.7, Andrew Gonski of Collinsville was ninth at 17:00.4 and rounding out the top ten was Highland's Mason Stenbeck at 17:02.3.
Along with the top four, the Tigers had Ben Ziobro in at 17:33.1, Parker Weaver had a time of 17:44.3 and Alex Uder's time was 18:07.6. Alton was led by Dylan Forsythe, who had a time of 17:06.4, with Alex Macias coming in at 17:39.0, Simon McClaine was home at 17:42.4, Christian Kotzamanis had a time of 17:43.6, River Wrishnik was in at 17:49.2, Victor Humphrey was clocked in 18:21.1 and Jonathan Krafka had a time of 19:03.8.
To go along with Pace's time, Triad had Drew Twyman in at 17:27.1, with Ben Winslow coming in at 17:51.3, Sam Kuckuch's time was 18:15.1, Dalton Mersinger had a time of 18:29.9, Dillon Henderson was in at 18:32.2 and Jacob Metcalf had a time of 18:43.3. Besides Westbrook, Granite had Sam Yeager in at 18:06.7, Aiden Harris had a time of 18:13.6, Ethan Beatty had a time of 18:34.4, Leighton Cohea was in at 19:13.7, Daniel Wilson had a time of 20:12.0 and Brendan Rayl's time was 20:28.5. Outside of Gonski, Collinsville had Brock Cunningham in at 17:17.5, Alejandro Mendoza had a time of 18:22.8, David Garcia was in at 20:07.2, Laurentino Martinez was home at 20:24.7 and Dylan Meek's time was 20:42.4.
The Tigers, Redbirds and Kahoks all compete in the Southwestern Conference meet on Thursday, and Patrylak knows that his team will continue to prepare for postseason racing very well.
"We just want to make sure we have the right seven when it counts," Patrylak said.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
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