Invitational meet brings together region's best runners

EDWARDSVILLE – Sunny and cool weather (temperatures in the upper 60s), along with a steady breeze, greeted runners for the 50^th edition of the Edwardsville Invitational cross-country meet at SIU-Edwardsville's cross-country course Saturday morning.

The conditions were certainly ideal for Nerinx Hall of Webster Groves and CBC of west St. Louis County, who took the team titles for the race, an event that attracted schools from both sides of the Mississippi River.

The Markers won the girls title by taking five of the top six places, led by Sloane Montgomery, who covered the five-kilometer (3.1-mile) course in 19:18.22, defeating Waterloo's Jenna Schwartz by seven-and-a-half seconds (Schwartz ran in 19:25.71); Nerinx won with 28 points, topping the host Tigers, who took second with 72 points. Litchfield finished third at 138, Waterloo fourth at 164 and Highland was fifth at 169. Roxana, eighth at 237, was the only other area team to score; Alton, Civic Memorial, McGivney Catholic, Jersey, Metro East Lutheran -Madison and Carrollton did not have enough runners for a team score.

On the boys side, the Cadets, with 98 points, topped Carbondale, who had 109 points for second. Edwardsville was third with 112, Jersey fourth with 118 and St. Charles rounded out the top five with 133. Other area teams who scored included Alton, eighth with 226; Civic Memorial, 13^th with 348 points; and Roxana, 17^th with 440. McGivney, MEL-Madison and Carrollton did not have enough runners for a team score.

“The girls had a solid day,” said Tiger coach George Patrylak. “We had our juniors and seniors running today in this race and they did a good job. Maddie Miller (who finished eighth on the day), once she gets to 100 percent, is going to be lights-out, and Rachel Schoenecker had a solid day.

“Our boys are still making the same mistakes they've been making and we'll need to get those corrected. We've got some talented runners out there and once they get the consistency we're looking for, we'll be fine. We're not quite where I want them to be, but even in the bad races, if they find something good they can take out of it and work on, that'll be good.”

MEL-Madison had only three runners in the boys race and a solo runner in the girls, but Knight coach Ruth Thompson was very pleased with their performances. “We ran faster than we've ever run on this course,” Thompson said. “We had some great conditions out there today and that helped.

“Our girls runner, Jana Hardaway, had a good race too (Hardaway covered the course in 33:11.73, good for 165^th); her time was phenominal.”

The Knights, who will be hosting the IHSA Class 1A Sectional at the SIUE course in late October, will continue to work to get their times down and start the run to the postseason. “We'll continue our distance program, do some hill work and speed work,” Thompson said.

Jersey's Ben Flowers, who has been coming into his own this season, won the boys race in 16:16.65, followed by Carbondale's Atlantis Green (16:33.57), Belleville West's Brian Gichuru (16:46.00), CBC's Reed Sahadevan (16:47.40), Carbondale's Micha Cherry (16:54.06), Alton's Arie Macias (16:54.34), Lutheran St. Charles' Cody Williams (16:55.04), Waterloo's Jake Schwartz (16:55.71), CBC's Matt Houston (16:59.10) and Mascoutah's Daniel Pearson (17:01.98).

Besides Thompson and Schwartz, the top 10 girls finishers included the Markers' Erin Smith (19:34.90), Emma McAtee (19:38.54) and Kate McAtee (19:44.53), John Burroughs' Grace Gore (19:49.63), Waterloo's Ella King (19:58.80), Miller (20:04.92), Fort Zumwalt East's Adrianne Brucker (20:05.49) and Burroughs' Arianna Latuda (20:10.09).

Besides Miller, other Tiger scorers included Schonecker (11^th in 20:11.38), Victoria Vegher (12^th in 20:13.18), Colleen Corkery (18^th in 20:24.75) and Payton Flowers (23^rd in 20:37.01). Roxana's scorers included Kyrston Scifres (29^th in 21:22.55), Shalyn Edwards (35^th in 21:57.83), Michaela Tarpley (44^th in 22:26.86), Victoria Tarpley (63^rd in 23:33.52) and Alexis Stumpf (66^th in 23:42.21).

The top runners on the day for non-scoring teams were Carrollton's Maddie Custer (83^rd in 23:53.54), McGivney's Mira McAtee (89^th in 24:26.45), CM's Monica Baker (96^th in 24:39.70), Alton's Tayton Kuebli (107^th in 25:14.15) and Jersey's Kayla Sheldon (126^th in 26:28.36).

On the boys' side, Edwardsville's scoring runners included Franky Romano (11^th in 17:05.37), Roland Prenzler (15^th in 17:16.68), Sam McCormick (22^nd in 17:48.53), Max Hartmann (27^th in 17:55.59) and Cameron Johnston (47^th in 18:30.11). Jersey's scoring runners other than Flowers were Nick Reynolds (13^th in 17:07.97), Mike Roach (17^th in 17:33.40), Mark Wendell (33^rd in 18:05.22) and Andrew Bertman (54^th in 18:40.32).

Alton's scoring runners other than Macias included Alex Davis (46^th in 18:25.15), Jeff Durr (56^th in 18:44.90), Sam Gentelin 57^th in 18:45.57) and James Steinman (61^st in 18:53.24). Civic Memorial's scorers were Frank Trost (35^th in 18:12.39), Cohl Callies (38^th in 18:18.60), Weihua Li (72^nd in 19:08.72), Jarrett Lacquement (90^th in 19:50.28) and Drake Stephenson (113^th in 20:53.74). Scoring runners for Roxana were James Henseler (64^th in 18:56.67), Brandon Isom (70^th in 19:00.31), Nathan Lowe (95^th in 19:59.10), Dakota Stumpf (96^th in 19:59.25) and Cree Stumpf (115^th in 20:59.47).

The highest-placed non-scoring runners included Carrollton's Mitchell Fredrickson (162^nd in 22:07.19), MEL-Madison's Elijah Culberth (176^th in 22:57.05) and McGivney's Jaron Silhavy (23:58.17).

Edwardsville and Jacksonville tied for the boys JV title, both teams scoring 68 points, with Waterloo third at 119, St. Charles fourth with 152 points and CBC fifth with 173^rd. The highest-placing area runner was the Tigers' Dan Powell, who was sixth in 17:49.15. The girls title went to the Tigers, who swept the top five places for 15 points, followed by Nerinx Hall with 72, East St. Louis with 114, Mascoutah with 138 and Collinsville with 153. Kennison Adams took first in a time of 20:38.19, with Lorie Cashdollar, Kiara Delgado, Lauren Meyer and Katelyn Singh finishing behind.

Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.

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