SWANSEA - Riley Knoyle ran the fastest time of the day, while Maya Lueking set a personal season-best time, and the entire Edwardsville High School girls cross country team performed well as the Tigers competed in an informal meet on Friday in Swansea.
No team scores were kept, but all the Southwestern Conference teams, minus East St. Louis, competed in the meet, which was held on the same course that will be used for the conference meet on Oct. 3.
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"It was a good day," said Tigers head coach George Patrylak. "It's been two-and-a-half weeks since we raced here, and we saw a lot of improvement in that time. The good thing about it that it was on the conference course, so this was a good practice meet for us to get ready for the conference meet."
Knoyle ran the three-mile plus course in 17:55, while Maya Lueking had a time of 19:16. Her sister, Makenna Lueking, was right behind with a time of 19:41, while Kaitlyn Loyet came in at 19:54, Dylan Peel was in at 20:00, Whitney Dyckman had a time of 20:10, and Olivia Coll had a time of 20:49.
Both the Tigers' varsity and JV teams competed in the meet, and Patrylak recognized three of his runners who had the top improvement of their previous times on the course. Margaret Paty had a time of 25:55, which was 1:30 faster than her previous best, Lily McClain came in at 23:50, breaking her personal record by 1:13, and Eva Witt's time was 23:45, also breaking her personal best by 1:13.
The Tigers now continue preparation work for the SWC meet, and will have a pair of conference dual meets, against Collinsville on Tuesday, and O'Fallon on Sept. 26, ahead of the conference meet.
"It was definitely a good experience for everyone, but this was our last big meet before the conference meet," Patrylak said. "We'll have a couple of warm-up meets in between, but right now, we're getting ready for the conference meet, and it's full steam ahead."
