Cross-country Indians, Swiney are hitting their stride
Landen Swiney and the Du Quoin Indians cross country team were in midseason form Monday at the Carterville Invitational as both won for the second straight week.
The Indians squeaked by Anna-Jonesboro by one point.
"I knew it was going to be close," said Du Quoin Coach Eric Kirkpatrick. "Our depth won it. Our four, five and six runners finished within three seconds of each other to give us the points we needed."
Swiney was dominant again, winning the race by a full 39 seconds. He took the lead early and was pretty much by himself for the entire three-mile race. The junior finished with a time of 16:21.
"I did nothing different today than last week, so the plan was to try go all out and just get ahead of the pack and again I broke away around the half mile mark," Swiney said. "Next race I think is with Benton again, so the goal is to try to stick with their top guy - probably Gavin Genisio - and see what happens. It's fun to race against him and Reece Johnson. The times are always better when you have somebody pushing you."
The race for the team title wasn't decided until Indians Dylan Stanley and Connor Giblin edged Anna-Jonesboro's Zach Henry, leaving him in 25th place and sealing the Indians' one-point win, 49-50.
"Landen did his thing," Kirkpatrick said. "It was a new course for us because they moved us from John A. Logan to the high school because the college wouldn't let them run because of COVID. So we don't know if the times are better or not. We look at the spread and from that I knew it was a good race for Landen, and Jonathan Gomes ran well too."
The top five runners on each team determine the team points. After Swiney crossed the finish line, two A-J juniors Jayden Perez (17:00) and Beto Vaca Diez (17:13) crossed next. Gomes, a senior, finished fourth (17:17) to tie the score 5-5 at that point.
A-J sophomore Matteo Vaca Diez was next in sixth place (17:30) to give the Wildcats three of the first six finishers. When Du Quoin junior Nathan Smith, who was still battling a sore back, finished in 11th place (17:59) A-J led 11-16 after three runners each.
The Wildcats fourth runner senior Colby Bowman then came in 14th (18:24) to push A-J's score to 25 points. After Murphysboro's Matthew Ryder finished next three Indians approached the finish line together with sophomore Tavion Garrison crossing first (18:56), senior David Gomes next (18:58) and freshman Conor Gross last (18:59).
Only Garrison and Gomes counted toward the team score thusly leaving the Indians with 49 points with one more Wildcat runner yet to be accounted for needing to finish 23rd or better to snatch the team title away from the Indians.
Two runners from Herrin claimed 19 and 20, Nashville came in 21 and Murphysboro 22 leaving Henry battling Stanley and Giblin for 23rd, but Henry fell six seconds short. Nashville finished third (71), Herrin fourth (92), Carterville fifth (96) and Murphysboro sixth (127).
Senior Reece Tilley finished up for the Indians coming in 29th with a time of 19:58.
The first time the two teams clashed it was a totally different meet. They met in the season opener at the SIRR Mississippi Division Preview Meet hosted by Du Quoin, with Swiney sitting out in quarantine. A-J finished second (52) behind Pinckneyville (35) with Nashville third (75) and Du Quoin way behind in fourth (95).
After taking eight days off from competition the Indians return to action Oct. 7 at the West Frankfort Invitational.