In the Springfield Cross County Invitational held Saturday, the Sparta Bulldogs took sixth place out of 22 teams. But of those 22 teams, only one Class A squad finished ahead of Sparta, Carlinville by 17 points.
Naperville North, ranked 24th in the state in Class 3A, won the boys team competition with 32 points followed by Springfield (96) ranked fourth in the state in Class 2A, Chatham Glenwood (117) ranked 12th in the state in Class 2A, Sacred Heart Griffith (145) ranked 15th in the state in 2A, Carlinville (150) ranked fourth in Class 1A, Sparta (167), Morton (195) ranked 14th in 2A, Belleville East (251), Rochester (286) ranked 14th in 1A, and Jacksonville (298) to round out the top 10.
“The boys ran great times, everyone topped their prediction times some by nearly 30 seconds,” said Sparta coach Mark North. “This was our first look at Carlinville and they will be in our sectional next month, we did not want to beat them yet we just wanted them to know that we are hanging around.
Wade Reeves, who was running for the first time in two weeks, led Sparta with a 12th place finish in 16:12. Jon Hill was 23rd at 16:33, Wes Bradshaw 38th at 16:55, Trevor Morgan 48th place in 17:15, Adam White 61st in 17:30, Dustin Neff 65th in 17:33 and Chris Theobald finished  with a time of 17:43.
The Lady Bulldogs took 11th place as Jackie Robinson had to sit out the meet due to a bee sting on her ankle during warm-up.
Leading Sparta were Aleigh Eggemeyer was 32nd in 20:21, Melyssa Bradshaw was 44th in 20:45, Kristina Wilson gutted out a great race on a bad hip taking 70th in 22:07, Kortney Stefani took 74th in 22:16, Alexis Kohrs took the fifth running spot for Sparta and ran a 23:37 to place 109 and Lauren Forcum took 140th in 29:00.  
Springfield won the meet with 53 points the Lady Bulldogs had 291.