10. East Moline (United)-
Head Coach: Christopher Wallaert
Last year’s final season finish: state- 12th (341pts)
Key returners: Austin Baker (Sr.)- 19th, Tyler Rasso (Sr.)- 24th, PaulyBoore (Sr.)- 114th, Bruce Taylor (Sr.)- 116th, Isaac Boore (So.)- 151st, Sean Dopler (Sr.)- 168th.
Season outlook: The good news is the Panthers return six of their top seven from last year. The bad news is there is a tremendous log jam of talented teams ahead of them with the same goal of competing for state trophies. But having tremendous talent such as Austin Baker and Tyler Rasso is going to help. Hopefully, both reining all-staters can drag their teammates to a lower scoring split in order to compete against some of the elite teams.
9. Mahomet-Seymour-
Head Coach/coach: Neal Garrison
Last year’s final season finish:state-11th (291pts.)
Key returners: Forrest Smoes (Sr.)-11th, Ethan Russell (Sr.)- 86th, Alex Keeble (So.)- 126th, James Williams (Sr.)- 127th, and Jackson Powell (Jr.)-173rd.
Projected top 7: Smoes, Russell, Williams, Keeble, Powell, Trevor Hanlon, and William Wolf (Jr.).
Newcomers: Gabe Pommier, Ben Craw, Myles Jones, and Brian Butcher
Season outlook from Coach Garrison: “We are returning a solid team, but losing two of our top four runners from the 11th place State team (including our 10th place finisher). We are hopeful that our returning runners will develop enough to qualify for state again and get into the top 10. The boys won some meets last season and we hope to be among the top teams at each meet. We realistically know that winning some of the meets we won last year might be more challenging for us this year. Depending on what Regional we are placed into, we hope to win that again. We don’t have a required summer training program. In fact, I don’t show up a single day in the summer.”
8. Dixon-
Head Coach: T. Evan Thorpe
Last year’s final season finish: 10th (284pts.)
Key returners: Simon Thorpe (Sr.)-21st, Cody Sondgeroth (Sr.)- 60th, Skylar Mitchell (Sr.)- 61st, Austin Trevino (Sr.)- 135th, Evan Grady (Jr.)- 153rd, Kylian Lally (Sr.)- 189th.
Season outlook: The Dukes return six of seven runners from last year’s state team. Simon Thorpe is the team’s top dog who ran 4:20 and 9:28 in the spring. The latter mark resulted in a 7th place finish in Charleston. He also competed in the Detweiller at Dark affair and ran a solid 15:42. This upperclassmen team has a lot of potential to be good this fall.
7. Belvidere North-
Head coach: Troy Yunk
Last year’s final season finish: State Runner-Up (126pts.).
Key returners: Eric Yunk (So.)- 41st, Jacob Howe (Sr.)-93rd, Chase Hill (Sr.)-132nd.
Season outlook: It may be hard times for the Blue Thunder in the early going until they can find the necessary parts to compliment the heir apparent, Eric Yunk. Yunk will be the captain of a ship that graduated four of its top five including, Eric’s older brother, Tyler Yunk. Coach Yunk is one of the finest coaches in the state and it is certain that he get enough solid bodies to compete well in the classification.
Season outlook from Coach Yunk: Our summer training has gone well. We had eight runners attend the University of Wisconsin camp of champions. Our daily long runs and weekly mileage will need to increase as we approach the end of August. This year our first day of school was the first day of official practice. This prevented us from having a week or more of two runs a day so we will need to do some long runs on the weekends to make up for that. This season we want to qualify for the state meet in November and represent Belvidere North. Our team is not the team that we have had for the past 6 years, we will not be in the running for a state trophy. We will need to adjust to that and know who we are and be the best that we can be. Our goals are different than in the past, but we still want to work hard and be a good team. We will be a young team with only two seniors in our top seven. We will go through some growing pains early and I hope by the end of October we are healthy and focused. Eryk Yunk, only a sophomore, will lead our team. He has trained with his two older brothers who are now off to college to run(Tyler-Kansas and Bruyn-Eastern Illinois). Eryk will need to be a strong leader for us at races and at practice. He will need to push himself and his team mates this year for us to improve. Eryk ran 15:19 last year so we hope to see him around 15:00 this year. Our sectional, in the past, has been loaded with good teams so we will need to run well when w eget to that point in the season. The key for us will be to develop a good fourth and fifth runner and keep the gap between our top three and ou fourth and fifth as close as possible. Only our top three have varsity experience so it will be a learning experience at the start of the season for our new guys.
6. Springfield-
Head Coach: Dan Devin
Last year’s final season finish: state- 7th (218pts)
Key returners: Pat Fitzgibbon (Sr.)- 32nd, Tyler Owens (Sr.)- 56th, Eric Wise (Jr.)-81st, Heath Warren (So.)-92nd.
Season outlook: Led by Pat Fitzgibbon, Springfield put their top four runners in the 100 at state. He should improve the team’s low point scorer, but there will need to be more support from returners Tyler Owens and Eric Wise. Heath Warren was one of the state’s top freshman middle-distance runners last spring and he should continue to rise this fall.