Highland boys harriers take 7th place at Granite City Invitational, girls finish 12th
The Highland boys and girls cross country teams recently hit the road for the second time in two weeks with a trip to Granite City on Saturday, Sept. 3.
All in all, both teams enjoyed a solid outing.
Highland’s boys finished a respectable seventh place overall with 247 points in the 27-team boys race at the 49th annual Granite City Invitational at Granite City High School and Wilson Park.
“If you compare last week to this week, I felt that we didn’t compete well enough against Civic Memorial. Ultimately, if our goal is to win the (Mississippi Valley) conference, we’re gonna have to close that gap with their top two guys which is Jackson Coleman and Justice Eldridge. I wouldn’t say it was a bad meet, but I wouldn’t say I was ecstatic about it either. Rather somewhere in between the two,” Highland coach Joe Shannon said.
Dallas Mancinas and Ethan Smith finished 43rd and 44th, respectively, with times of 16:47.3 and 16:47.6. Christian Knobloch placed 56th (17:00.6), Mason Steinbeck placed 65th (17:13.5), Avery Brock finished 73rd (17:22.2) and Cole Basden placed 87th (17:37.39) to round out the Bulldogs top six finishers.
Knobloch’s finish and Braden Wakely’s 17:45.9 effort were major bright spots for HHS.
“The two biggest races were Christian Knobloch ran a 17-flat and then Braden Wakely had a huge PR (personal record),” Shannon said. “He went 17:45, so we still definitely had some bright spots. I think those two really shined.”
The Bulldogs finished just ahead of eighth place Edwardsville (253) and ninth place Triad (254).
In the girls’ 3-mile race, HHS claimed 12th place with 309 points, which put them just behind 10th place Triad (272) and just one spot ahead of 13th place Freeburg (362).
“We were missing Tarryn Keeney ... right now, she could be one or two for us, so I think that was about the performance we would have with team placement (in the meet),” Shannon said. “I still think even with Tarryn that we still need to challenge Triad who is in our conference. Triad scored 272 and we were at 309, so we need to compete a little better against our conference schools than we did.”
Peyton Frey led the Lady Bulldogs and medaled with a 30th place finish with a time of 19:56.9.
“Peyton Frey had herself a pretty good race, earned herself a medal and being under 20 (minutes) at this point in the season is a pretty good mark to hit,” Shannon said.
Maddie Dortch followed Frey placing 58th overall (21:14.3) followed by Ava McPherson in 70th place (21:33.5) and Elley Seger in 74th place (21:43.5).
Freshmen Maddie Molitor (108th place) and Vivian Marron (109th place) rounded out the top six for HHS.
“I think that was good for their first varsity meet and I think they handled it very well,” Shannon said.
This story was originally published September 4, 2022 at 12:00 AM.