Indians end shortened season with historic sectional performance
In all honesty, the Du Quoin boys cross country team went into the Belleville Althoff 1A sectional as the darkest of horses.
And when it ended, it took the sixth man - senior Reese Tilley - to make program history. Both the boys and the sectional champion girls earned a state berth in the same year for the first and only time.
"We were not ranked to be anywhere near there and we all preformed really well and did it," Tilley said. "It was a pretty tough course and a pretty rough day for me, but I knew we could do it, so I just kept pushing just like the whole team did. It's been an interesting year."
The Du Quoin boys also snapped a 36-year state meet drought, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic the state meet has been canceled leaving the Indians all dressed up with no place to go.
"You couldn't ask for a better day for a sectional," said Du Quoin coach Eric Kirkpatrick. "No wind and a little bit chilly, but we'll take that. The course was in pretty good shape."
Du Quoin and Trenton Wesclin finished tied for the fifth and final state qualifying position with 163 points after the top five scores were added up.
The tiebreaker was between the sixth men and Tilley easily outdistanced Wesclin's sixth man by 14.87 seconds and eight spots finishing 74th with a time of 19:21.36.
"It wasn't my best time of the year, but it wasn't too bad," Tilley said. "I started off pretty good, but I kind of hit a wall. I got it done though.
"I knew we were pretty close when me and Conor (Gross) were running (in the third heat), but I had no idea it was going to be that close."
The last time the Indians boys team had earned a state berth was in 1984 when that team completed a stretch of three straight regional titles by qualifying for the state meet for only the second time in program history with the first time being in 1982.
"I'm so proud of those guys," Kirkpatrick said. "Reese and the Gomes brothers have helped build the program and have worked so hard for the last three or four years to make it to the state meet. And this year they finally do it and there is no state meet."
Benton won by 15 points over Pinckneyville (63-78) for its third sectional title in school history to earn it fourth straight state appearance and fifth in the last six seasons. Freeburg finished third (101) with Althoff (160) edging Du Quoin and Wesclin by three points for fourth.
Junior Indian Landen Swiney finished fifth overall with a time of 16:11.24.
He was edged by Pinckneyville freshman Issac Teel (16:10.76) by less than a half a second.
"I had the lead on him around the 1½ mile mark and then he took a turn better than I did at the end and overtook me the last 10 seconds," Swiney said. "It was a weird finish where you go uphill and it ends on a downhill. I took the turn too wide where it turns onto the uphill and he took it sharper than I did. He took the lead off that."
Wesclin senior Justin Mumford (15:19.93) won his first sectional title after flirting with it his previous three tries - finishing second twice and third once. The Rangers grabbed second and third with freshman Gavin Genisio (15:56.78) and senior Reece Johnson (16:02.89), respectively.
Also scoring for the state qualifying Indians squad were junior Nathan Smith in 17th place (17:26.54), senior Jonathan Gomes 31st (17:58.56), Gomes' twin brother David Gomes 64th (18:56.16) and the freshman Gross 67th (18:59.15). Junior Hunter Douglas rounded out the squad finishing 104th (21:57.04).
Joining Mumford as state qualifying individuals were Carmi-White County senior Ty Barbre, Christ Our Rock Lutheran senior Zach McKowen, Wesclin junior Gavin Hill, Breese Mater Dei junior Tommy Marron, Christ Our Rock Lutheran senior Sam Britt and Vienna senior Matthew Johnson.
Swiney will get another shot at Mumford Friday when he will compete at the ShaZam Racing Cross Country Championships held at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe, Illinois. The event was created to offer closure to what was an unorthodox fall of high school cross-country racing.