The Du Quoin girls cross-country team continues to blot out the competition this postseason, this Saturday taking its third sectional title in the last four years.
The girls have qualified for Du Quoin's sixth straight cross-country state final. In the past two weeks they also have won a fourth straight regional title and a fourth straight conference title.
"They got it done again," said Du Quoin Head Coach Eric Kirkpatrick, after the girls won the sectional at Trenton Wesclin.
"They just keep going. I can't express enough how difficult it is to get up for every meet. These girls just stay so focused all the time and that comes from leadership. We don't have a shortage of that."
This coming Saturday at Detweiller Park in Peoria the illustrious Lady Indians will be looking to better their 14th place team finish in 2019 - the last time the championships were held. Last year the state finals were cancelled because of COVID.
"I think we could have bettered 14th last year, but didn't get a chance," Kirkpatrick said. "It's always our goal to do better than we did before, so we're looking to get in the top 15 again and maybe break into the top 10 some day."
The Lady Indians won the sectional title by 46 points over Pinckneyville. Led by seniors Olivia Phillips and Lauren Heape who finished in the top 10, Du Quoin had five runners in the top 28.
Phillips finished second to Pope County sophomore Ahri Comer by 20.22 seconds with a time of 18:51.03. Heape finished 10th (20:03.67).
"Olivia ran a perfect race," Kirkpatrick said. "She stayed right on the two ahead of her for 2½ miles to put herself in position to win it. Then the Father McGivney girl went down and Liv hung with Comer until she couldn't.
"I've never had an All-State runner in my nine years as coach, so that's the next goal to get Olivia, Landen (Swiney) and as many as we can."
Freshmen Maggie Kellerman came in 22nd (20:42.32), Issy Phillips was 26th (20:51.60) and sophomore Kallie Oestreicher finished 28th (21:00.62).
The top five runners for Pinckneyville were freshman Vanessa Teel, fifth (19:41.30); senior Ashlee Hirsch, 20th (20:40.14); freshman Zoey Conway, 31st (21:03.32); senior Taylor Kurtz, 32nd (21:03.74); and senior Madison Geffers, 54th (22:00.23).
Du Quoin's Smith, Swiney head to state
For the boys, senior Landen Swiney qualified for the state cross-country meet for the third straight year with a fourth place finish (15:56.09) at the Trenton Wesclin sectionals.
"Landen made it as an individual two years ago, so he's got the experience of running at Detweiller," Kirkpatrick said. "I'm happy he has Nathan (Smith) going with him. It's difficult standing in the box with strangers. Now he can go through the pre-run rituals with someone he knows."
Fellow senior Smith will be running at the state meet for the first time after qualifying as an individual by 3.41 seconds over Carterville senior Sean Taylor with a 20th place finish in a time of 17:10.12.
"We qualified as a team last year, but they didn't have the state meet due to the corona(virus)," Smith said. "My only goal this year was to try to make it to state. With the other teams doing well that threw my original goal of making with the team out the window, so my goal changed to qualifying as an individual.
"I knew Benton would qualify as a team, but didn't know which other team would or would not qualify so if I was around a Benton kid I would be in a good position to qualify, but it came down to the wire," he said. "The way the course finishes the last 300 meters is on the track. Sean Taylor had never been ahead of me all season, but when we reached the track he was sitting right in front of me. I beat him in the last sprint - the last 100 meters - for what turned out to be the last spot.
"I felt kind of bad for him because he ran his best race. I didn't know for certain until five minutes before they made the announcement. I've never ran a race at Detweiller and only jogged a portion of it when I went up there to support Landen."
Benton won the team title by 13 points over Pinckneyville. Rangers sophomore Gavin Genisio won the title with a time of 15:13.24 followed by Panthers sophomore Isaac Teel 3rd (15:38.97) and Panthers senior Dylan Bledsoe 3rd (15:54.62).
Rounding out the Rangers squad were senior Chase Owens ninth (16:43.07), freshman Gabe McLain 11th (16:54.20), freshman Cole Buchanan 26th (17:23.06) and sophomore Mason Tieffel 30th (17:25.28).
The remainder of the Panthers squad were senior Holden Clark 15th (16:59.73), junior Dawson Chaney 17th (17:03.77) and senior Braydon Schubert 55th (18:19.72).
