GRANITE CITY - Granite City freshman Landon Harris finished fifth, while Civic Memorial had historic performances from their runners and Edwardsville did well despite missing two of their top runners in the 50th running of the Pete Robinson/Harry Lang cross country meet held Saturday morning at Wilson Park in Granite City.
O'Fallon won the team championship with 45 points, edging out St. Louis University High, who was second with 48 points. Rockton Hononegah was third with 156 points, Marion was fourth with 171 points, the Tigers placed fifth with 176 points, Chatham Glenwood was sixth with 193 points, the Eagles came in seventh with 202 points, Eureka, Mo. was eighth at 228 points, Triad was ninth at 251 points and Mt. Vernon rounded out the top ten with 263 points.
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Among local schools, Highland tied for 13th with Carbondale, both having 391 points, Roxana was 17th with 464 points, the host Warriors were 18th at 469 points and East St. Louis was 22nd with 616 points. Alton, Marquette Catholic, Collinsville, Metro-East Lutheran, Jersey, Staunton and East Alton-Wood River also had runners who competed in the race, but not enough to record a team score.
Despite missing two of their top four runners, Edwardsville performed well, getting good performances from younger runners who were brought up for the race.
"We were missing two of our top four runners for various reasons," said Tigers' head coach George Patrylak. "I was also hesitant to bring up too many underclassmen, as we already had our top four sophomores planned for the varsity race."
The Tigers faced problems early on, as the team was positioned in a starting box tot the far left of the course, and as the field began to move to the right side of the opening straight to enter the main course, several Edwardsville runners were knocked down to the ground or tripped up. The race officials didn't see what had happened and didn't call for a restart.
"I was proud of the fact that the boys got up and continued the fight," Patrylak said. "I was pleased with the fifth place finish when considering the missing runners and seeing how our runners did at the start. If we didn't get into any of those situations, we would have finished third as a team."
And as a testimony to Edwardsville's depth, Colin Luitjohan and Taylor Davis finished one-two in the freshman-sophomore race as the Tigers finished second behind SLUH.
Meanwhile, it was a historic day for CM, as the Eagles got a ninth-place finish from Max Weber and five of the seven runners – Weber, D.J. Dutton, Jacob Cranford, Landon Kearby and Tulio Zampieri - all set personal records.
"I was really, really pleased how everything ended up this morning," said CM coach Jake Peal. "We had five of our seven guys for our varsity run PRs. It was a very good showing of our potential this season."
Also for the first time in the school's history, the top six runners finished in under 17 minutes, which shows CM's potential for a big year in 2023.
"Everyone was great," Peal said, "and I like how things have developed the last two weeks. We're pretty pleased."
Dylon Nalley of Marion won the race with a time of 14:08.9, while Dylan Ybarra of O'Fallon was second at 14:33.1 and teammate Zach Thoman was third at 14:53.0. Fourth place went to Jackson Miller of SLUH at 15:06.5, with Harris fifth at 15:07.0, George Donohue of the Junior Billikens sixth at 15:11.1, teammate Charles Murray was seventh at 15:13.4, with the Panthers' Brayden Kloeppel eighth at 15:13.7, Weber came in ninth at 15:19.3 and O'Fallon's Harrison Schroeder rounded out the top ten at 15:22.5.
Marquette's Braden Nash led the team with a time of 20:45.8, while Owen Page came in at 21:04.2 and Roger Zawodniak had a time of 25:15.5. Noah Gallivan led the Redbirds with a time of 16:02.3, while Charlie McAfoos was in at 18:14.3 and Hank McClaine had a time of 18:21.9.
To go along with Weber's time, Dutton came in at 15:19.3 for the Eagles, while Dutton was in at 15:31.1, Cranford's time was 16:23.5, Justice Eldridge came in at 16:27.1, Kearby was in at 16:41.9, Lucas Naugle had a time of 16:44.1 and Zampieri was home at 17:08.2. Andrew Gonski had a time of 16:48.1 for the Kahoks, while Brian Castro was in at 17:36.3 and Will Slaznik had a time of 20:41.2
Darius Ivy was the leader for the Flyers at 16:07.7, while Devonte Ellard had a time of 18:11.6, Demarcus Coleman was in at 18:25.0, Ladarius Estes had a time of 21:16.1 and Desmond Ryan was home as 21:33.2. Adam Brokemeier was the lone runner for Metro-East and his time was 18:31.8.
In addition to Landon Harris' time, the host Warriors had Aiden Harris in at 18:37.8, Cleison Miranda-Gomez's time was 18:00.4, Josh Martin was in at 18:21.8 and Trenton Clutts had a time of 20:48.1. Dallas Mancinas led the Bulldogs with a time of 16:05.4, with Christian Knobeloch in at 16:09.0, Donnie Miller had a time of 16:34.3, Ada Roach's time was 17:38.9, Sam Huelskamp came in at 19:21.3, Jack Grotefendt was in at 19:58.1 and Aden Peters had a time of 22:57.7.
Garin Schleeper was Jersey's lone runner and had a time of 21:52.0, while Wyatt Doyle led the Shells with a time of 16:21.1, Hunter Ponce was in at 17:08.1, Anthony Hardin came in at 17:17.5, Noah Smith had a time of 17:47.3, Noah McVey was home at 17:51.1, Easton Johnston was clocked in 18:10.3 and Aaron Shields had a time of 18:36.9.
Nick Monahan led Staunton with a time of 18:23.6, while Aiden Green was in at 18:48.1, Thomas Ogata had a time of 21:05.1 and Trevor Myers was in at 23:44.7. Triad was led by Drew Twyman, who's time was 15:26.5, with Andrew Pace in at 15:27.4, Sam Kuckuck was home at 16:39.8, Gavin Woolverton was home at 17:03.5, Dalton Mersinger's time was 17:15.1 and Gray Lipe had a time of 17:15.7.Evan Baker led the Oilers with a time of 19:06.4 and Jamal Burgess, Jr., was in at 20:29.0.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
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