O’Fallon High School boys, girls cross country teams perform well at recent meets

On Sept. 9, the O’Fallon boys JV cross country team ran a dual meet against Belleville East. The Panthers looked strong with multiple runners crossing the finish line ahead of East.

Blake Westrater finished first with a time of 17:31 followed by Nick Novy (17:36), then Ben VanAlstine (17:49), Logan Hartrich (19:22), Taylor Lehman (19:22), AJ Doss (19:33) and Andrew Mountain (19:48) rounding out the top 7. The weather was muggy, so times were not as fast as previous meets, but with the return of cooler weather times likely will see a drop.

On Saturday, O’Fallon’s varsity team ran in the Belleville West Invitational. Despite muddy course conditions, seven people ran better times than the time trial, with the biggest drop coming from Ryan Weyhaupt, -1:55. Harry Clinton ran 4:23 faster than this same meet last season.

The team was very focused before the race. Team placement was Nick Edwards in first with a time of 15:40, Dylan Ybarra was second with a time of 16:04 and Ethan Nieroda was third at 16:30, followed by Peyton Mueller (16:32), Eli Greenstreet (16:35), Nico Parker (16:53) and Alex Tilock (18:13).

OTHS girls show well in multiple meets

On Sept. 10, the O’Fallon girls cross country team raced against Belleville East. The team took the top five spots and were led by Sophie Moffett, Maddie Fields, Isabella Saldana, Sofia Parker, and Sarah Davis.

On Saturday, the Panthers took second at the Belleville West Invitational in a close battle with Edwardsville. The team was led by individual champion Peyton Schieppe who ran 17:44. Julia Monson (sixth in 19:35), Ella Peterson (seventh in 19:38), Hannah Zura (10th in 19:54), and Maddy Vorce (15th in 20:21) rounded out the scoring.

This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 12:41 PM.