Elmwood/Brimfield, Eureka take 1A cross country titles, four area runners in boys 2A top 10
PEORIA — Detweiller Park was filled to the brim with spectators for another edition of the IHSA Cross Country state finals.
Hundreds of schools and runners in attendance took on the grueling three-mile course in temperatures ranging from the lower 30s to the upper 50s.
The day started off at 9 a.m. with the Class 1A girls race, headlined by Effingham St. Anthony’s Isabella Keller, who finished in 16:06.5, a full minute and nine seconds ahead of the rest of the pack. But moments later, Eureka found out that they won the team title for the second time in school history with 104 points.
“For us, it was a comeback,” Eureka head coach Olivia Morris said. “Last year, we weren’t excited with how we ended it. It was a big learning year and the question was ‘Are they going to learn from it?’ And they did that.”
Ava Otto led the Hornets in 13th place with her time of 17:40.0, followed closely by Sierra Herrmann in 21st place at 17:45.9, Kinsley Stoller (18:31.4) in 46th and Bre Lehman (18:42.5) in 58th.
“It’s just such a blessing that everything fell together in one place,” Otto said. “With all our team performing their best and all of us basically running for each other, that really helped.”
Elmwood/Brimfield finished second with 141 points, led by Bristol Schmidgall’s 16th-place finish (17:42.5) and Mya Hill placing 27th (17:59.1). El Paso-Gridley’s Haven Miller finished the course in 19th (17:45.1), helping the Titans take fourth.
Princeville’s Bethany Sennett (17:42.9) and Illini Bluffs’s Audrey Dickinson (17:44.4) finished 17th and 18th, respectively, and Delavan’s Elyse Brinkmeyer (17:46.2) placed 22nd, all as individuals.
After its second-place finish on the girls side, Elmwood/Brimfield brought home the team title in the Class 1A boys race, the ninth time their program has won state. This also gives them the second-most IHSA state titles ever in boys cross country.
“There are so many good teams here and there’s so many good teams in Central Illinois,” Elmwood/Brimfield head coach Gregg Meyers said. “When you look around, you’ve got Eureka, El Paso-Gridley, Peoria Notre Dame in 2A, we’re in a hotbed of great runners, so to be able to come in here and win today, I think it has a lot to do with who we compete against on a weekly basis.”
Just like the girls race, the champs’ top runner took 13th place, that being Cole Cahill with a 14:59.67 time. Finishing next for the Trojans was Danny Sharp (15:12.22), who took a very respectable 28th place.
“Words can’t describe how hard we’ve worked,” Cahill said. “We’ve been through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows together this year, and it just means a lot that we could all come out with a really good performance.”
The Class 1A boys pack was led individually by Murphysboro’s Edgar Garcia, but Delavan’s Coriell Green led all area runners in fourth (14:48.53), followed by IVC’s Aiden Duhs in fifth (14:49.31) and Eureka’s Adam Perry in eighth (14:56.02), the latter two helping their teams placed third and fourth in the team standings.
Bloomington Central Catholic’s Nicholas Jelinek (15:06.13) and El Paso-Gridley’s Weston Hodel (15:10.11) led their teams in 24th and 27th while IVC’s Jackson Rupiper (14:58.49) and Eureka’s Davin Dingledine (15:23.56) finished in 12th and 32nd, respectively.
The Class 2A girls race was as close as it could get with Crystal Lake Prairie Ridge and Chatham Glenwood tying at 132 points in the team title. The Titans’ Ali Londrigan finished in second place individually, only 0.09 seconds behind Wheaton St. Francis’s Elena Mamminga.
The top area runner in the race was Bloomington’s Lorelei Hulsing, whose ninth-place finish of 17:39.27 secured an 11th-place finish for the Purple Raiders, the program’s best result at state in their history.
“I’m so glad I was able to pull through at the end,” Hulsing said. “I was really putting in the miles, I went to lots of national events to prepare for big meets like this and I knew I could do it.”
Josie Skeate’s time of 18:41.27 put her in 54th place, taking another top-60 spot for Bloomington. The Morton duo of Elsie Parnham (18:32.52) and Lily Fulton (18:37.34) also had strong performances, finishing in 44th and 51st, respectively, followed by Peoria Notre Dame’s Brigid Gould (18:42.42) in 57th.
Dixon took home the team title at the Class 2A boys race, but finishing just behind them with 160 points was Morton, led by Maxwell Carter’s ninth-place time of 14:27.99. Keyston Beyer (14:39.37) and Abe Martin (15:05.87) also secured top-40 finishes for the Potters in 15th and 36th, respectively.
“I just love working with these guys,” Carter said. “I’ve been working with them for four-plus years and it’s just really rewarding to finally get on that podium again. Last year, we got fourth and it was pretty disappointing; we really wanted to get first this year and I think we all put our hard work in and got what we wanted to get done.”
Morris’s Cuyler Swanson won the 2A boys meet with a 14:10.98 time, but about ten seconds behind him was Washington’s Ben Gorsage, who finished the course in 14:20.19, clinching fourth.
“I’m so happy, I did everything I could,” Gorsage said. “That was the best race I’ve run all season, probably my entire life. There’s always nerves, no matter how good you get, but there was also a lot of confidence and I was ready to compete to the best of my ability.”
Central Illinois had two more top-10 finishers in Peoria Notre Dame’s Maxwell Kirby and Normal U-High’s Andrew Aldeman, who finished in sixth and eighth with times of 14:24.44 and 14:25.89, respectively. Bloomington’s Eli Hartman (14:58.28) competed individually and left with a 29th-place finish.
Pekin had two runners in the Class 3A girls race as McKinlee Williams (18:19.08) and Morgan Coker (18:30.57) placed 133rd and 148th.
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