It was a great race for the Minooka fresh/soph boys cross country runners. 

They finished with 396 points in 16th as part of the open race at the First to the Finish Invitational on Sept. 13 at Detweiler Park in Peoria.

With illness going around, some of the boys were still feeling sick. But they pushed through and ran well. 

The fastest runner for Minooka was sophomore Thomas Zbranek with a time of 17:52 earning him 73rd place in the race. The top 5 average time was 18:07 with a spread of 0:21. 

It was a tough race because it was hot outside and this course was wide. 

Sophomore Westcott Evans cut his time from last year by a whole 5 minutes. This year he ran a 21:03 and last year he ran a 26:10. 

“I don’t actually feel I did that well, even though on the actual sheet with the times, it would seem that I did a lot better than you would think,” he said.

From his perspective, this year he mostly ran 19s and 20s. In Peoria, he got a 21, which is still a big improvement over last year’s 26.

”I’m happy with moving faster, but I’m mad because my main reason for my slowness is because I was stuck at the back of the pack,” Evans said, “And since there are over a thousand people, I couldn’t get to the front and actually get the time I wanted.” 

Since Peoria has a wide and dusty course, people have mixed feelings on it.

 “It’s so dusty, I was literally at night coughing up dust when I was trying to go to bed. And that one big hill up and down just sucks, cause I like hills, but I want it to be, like, semi steep. I don’t want it to be just one super small gad incline for like 800 meters,” Evans said.

“The course was so dusty, but I still got a PR so I’m happy about that,” Zbranek said.

Grady Eales is a member of the fresh/soph cross country team.