Alton’s Havis, Marquette’s Vickrey win at Havens Invite

Edwardsville flashes depth, sweeps team titles

Greg Shashack, gshashack@thetelegraph.com

 Published 9:08 pm CDT, Monday, September 24, 2018

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Greg Shashack / The Telegraph

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Edwardsville’s Jillian Welsh turns a corner ahead of Carrollton’s Lily Baumgartner (631) and CM’s Kati Wells (right) about a mile into the three-mile Havens Invitational cross country meet Monday at

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ELSAH – Cassius Havis immediately challenged the field Monday in the boys race at Jerseyville’s Havens Invitational at Principia College.

The field had no answer for the Alton Redbirds junior.

“I went out hard to see if anyone would try to go with me,” Havis said. “No one really did.”

Havis took command in the opening mile and won his first cross country invitational title while covering the three-mile course at Prin in 16 minutes, 39 seconds. Edwardsville’s Henry Gruben was runner-up in 16:57.

“It was kind of hard running by myself, but I kept on trying to push,” said Havis, who started thinking victory with about one mile left in his first race on the layout at Prin. “I kind of looked behind and didn’t see anybody. I knew I had it.”

Edwardsville held its top three boys runners out of the lineup, but still placed five in the top seven to easily win the team title with 22 points. Civic Memorial ran second with 67 points, with Jersey (79), Alton (95), Auburn (135), Dupo (141) and Marquette Catholic (178) completing the seven boys teams.

The absence of Edwardsville’s Roland Prenzler and Jack Pifer, who both finished ahead of Havis in his third-place finish Sept. 15 at the Edwardsville Invite at SIUE, left Havis as the favorite and the Redbird delivered.

“He’s always there and I try to run with him, try to keep up with him,” Havis said of Prenzler. “It makes a difference. If he would have run today, it would have pushed me more. But I’ve got to be happy.”

Edwardsville also scored Alexander Valdez (17:09) in third, Todd Baxter (17:11) in fourth, Colten O’Brien (17:14) in sixth and Dan Powell (17:23) in seventh.

“Right now, we’re really working on trying to find our identity as a team,” Edwardsville coach George Patyrlak said. “We feel we have our top four pretty solidified. But for us to be able to accomplish our goals for the season, we need to keep improving at our No. 5 spot. That was part of our goal today, to continue to get that competition for the 5-6-7 spots because that’s what’s going to make or break the season for us on the boys side.”

CM placed two runners in the top 10 with Mark Eldridge (17:12) coming in fifth and Parker Borth (17:30) finishing in eighth. Jersey was led by a 10-11 finish from Drew Bertman (17:44) and Christian Cazier (17:46).

GIRLS DIVISION

Like Edwardsville’s boys, the Tigers girls rested their top three runners in hopes of developing depth for postseason.

“We wanted to give the other ladies a chance to battle,” Patrylak said. “We’ve been a little bit inconsistent, 4 through 7, so we’re just trying to get the girls to continue battling for those spots. Our girls sectional is going to be extremely tough. If we don’t have at least five, if not all seven, runners clicking when it comes to the end of the season it’s going to be difficult. We have one of the best girls sectionals in the state, so we have to make sure we take care of business if we want to get out.”

Marquette Catholic junior Riley Vickrey took care of her business while using a strong closing kick to win in 19 minutes, 49 seconds. “I’ve wanted to break 20 minutes all season and I finally got that,” Vickrey said. “So I’m happy.”

Vickrey stalked leader Elise Krone of Edwardsville for much of the race before catching the Tigers senior just over 100 yards from the finish and drawing off to win by six seconds.

“I always feel really confident near the end because I feel like I’ve got a good kick,” Vickrey said. “So when I saw (Krone) start taking a lead with about a half-mile left, I wasn’t too worried. When we turned the corner for the last straightaway, I just took off.”

Krone led a parade of six Tigers in the top nine to give Edwardsville an easy victory in the team standings with 16 points. Auburn was second with 78, followed by CM (80), Alton (88) and Jersey (101).

Krone also broke 20 minutes by hitting the chute at 19:55 with teammates Emiley England (20:22) in third, Kiara Delgado (20:49) in fourth and Makenna Lueking (20:57) in fifth. Jillian Welsh (21:37) ran seventh to cap the Tigers’ scoring.

CM was led by an eighth-place run from Kati Wells (21:48). Carrollton’s Lily Baumgartner (21:53) was 10th. Alton was led by Sophia Paschal (21:58) in 11th, while Jersey’s Hannah Tonsor (22:12) came home in 12th

For Havens champ Vickrey, it will be a short recovery before running at the Triad Invite on Wednesday. “It’s not ideal,” she said. “But I’ll just ice bath and I should be ready.”

And both the girls and boys winners at Elsah gave high marks to Prin’s North Farm course that played host to the Division III cross country national championships in 2017.

“I love this course,” Vickrey said. “The uphills balance out the downhills, so I feel like it’s pretty even. It’s great scenery, it’s all grass. I think it’s really nice.”

“This,” Havis said, “is the way a cross country course should be.”

Wrong turn DQ’s entire girls field at Alton Invite

Centralia rolls to boys title at Moore Park

Greg Shashack, gshashack@thetelegraph.com

 Updated 9:37 pm CDT, Wednesday, September 19, 2018

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Greg Shashack | The Telegraph

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Belleville East’s Hannah Eastman (left) and Marquette Catholic’s Riley Vickrey sprint the final yards to the finish Wednesday at the Alton Invitational cross country meet at Moore Park in Alton. No results

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ALTON – Against her better judgment, Riley Vickrey followed the leader one mile into the girls race at the Alton Invitational cross country meet.

“I thought I knew it and I was going to go the right way,” Vickrey said. “But I saw the lead girl – I was maybe 30 meters behind her – and saw her go right. I was like, maybe she knows it better and it got changed from last year, so I just followed her because I thought she knew.”

Turns out, she did not.

A wrong turn cut a full mile off the three-mile layout at Gordon Moore Park – and another missed turn approaching the finish – forced race officials to disqualify the entire girls field that followed the leader.

“Officially, there was no race for the girls,” Alton coach and race director Vernon Curvey said. “There’s no times, no medals, no nothing for the girls race.”

The non-race produced a dramatic dash to the finish between Belleville East’s Hannah Eastman and Vickrey after Eastman again went off course and had to back track more than 100 yards, giving up a comfortable lead and creating a frantic sprint to the finish.

Both runners had plenty left in the tank in a run reduced to about two miles. Vickrey will write if off as a practice run. “That’s basically what it was,” she said.

Vickrey spent the final mile at Moore Park knowing something had gone wrong after the field had gone right.

“On the first mile, we’re supposed to go left — or you can go right,” Vickrey said. “We took right, ran up the two-mile hill and starting looping the whole finish. It was two miles. I just knew it was wrong.”

Curvey said there was no race official on the course to direct traffic at the one-mile mark because there has never been a need.

“That is a spot that we have not had a problem with,” Curvey said. “This is the 18th year I’ve coached and we’ve never had a problem at that spot. … The girls tell me there was somebody down there telling them to go the wrong way. Whether that happened, I don’t know. It’s a spot we’ve not had a problem with. It’s not a new spot on the course.”

The defending Alton Invite champions were both taking leisurely runs before the race, but both Staunton sophomore Lydia Roller and Granite City senior Andrew O’Keefe opted to rest their legs rather than run in the midweek meet.

The boys race went off without GPS issues and the Centralia Orphans put five runners in the top 11 to easily win the championship in a nine-team field. The Orphans finished with 27 points to beat runner-up Belleville East (59). Collinsville (80), Civic Memorial (89), Jersey (142), Granite City (161), Alton (180), McCluer North (189) and Marquette (253) completed the boys field.

Centralia’s Crede Correll won the race in 16 minutes, 42.45 seconds, with East’s Byron Jones second in 16:50.42. Orphans finished 3-4 and a Lancer was fifth before Alton junior Cassius Havis hit the chute in sixth in 17:07.66 after leading much of the first mile.

“He was really looking forward to this race,” Curvey said of Havis. “It was his. He looked good at the mile, right where he was supposed to be.”

But Havis would have embraced the wrong turn the girls took at mile two.

“I got to about the second mile and felt pretty bad,” Havis said. “My legs weren’t going. And as they continued to pass me, I couldn’t go with them. I couldn’t keep up.”

CM’s Mark Eldridge turned in a top 10 effort, finishing in 17:35.33 to place 10th. The Eagles’ Drake Stephenson (18:23.38) was 16th and Julian Pizzo (18:33.68) was 17th. Jersey’s Christian Cazier, who was 11th in this race last season, came home in 20th in 18:36.16, while teammate Asher Stidd (18:44.27) was 21st.

Alton’s Havis had hoped for better after placing third here last season and coming off a strong run to finish third Saturday at the Edwardsville Invite at SIUE.

“I’m going to put this one behind me,” Havis said. “I’m a bit disappointed. Saturday, I had a pretty good race. Today, I didn’t perform how I wanted.”

First two practices for cross country will be Tuesday May 29th and Thursday May 31st at AHS from 6 pm to 8 pm.