The Mount Vernon Invitational cross country meet had a different format than most cross country events. At the invitational, teams would rank their runners from first to seventh, then all the runners would race against their counterparts from other schools depending on their rankings. The race was divided up between 1A, 2A, and 3A schools.
The different format didn’t phase the Sparta cross country team as the running Bulldogs won every race.
Clint Hawkins won the seven-seed race in 18:56, Chris Theobald took first in the six-seed race in 18:33, Adam White won the five-seed race in 18:25, Trevor Morgan topped the field in the four-seed race in 18:01, Wesley Bradshaw won the three-seed race in 17:31, Jon Hill took first in the two-seed race in 17:10 and Wade Reeves topped it off with a 16:43 to win the race of the top runners from each school.
“There were about 20 teams and the last four races came down to us dueling Belleville East and Mattoon for the wins,” said Sparta coach Mark North.
Sparta won the boys competition with the lowest possible score of 7, followed by Lawrenceville (16), Nashville (27), Fairfield (34) and Hamilton County (41).
The Lady Bulldogs also won their team competition with 23 points followed by Newton (23), Hamilton County (25), West Frankfort (28), and Nashville (29).
Leading the way for Sparta was, Alexis Kohrs winning the five-seed race in 24:00, Kristina Wilson winning the two-seed race in 21:07, and Aleigh Eggemeyer winning the race of top runners in 19:59.