EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville runner Jackson Amick finished second, Ben Perfulfi was right behind in third and Colin Thomas came in eighth as the Tigers won their own Edwardsville Invitational boys cross country meet Saturday morning at the Mud Mountain course at SIU-Edwardsville.
The Tigers won with 48 points, with John Burroughs School of Ladue, Mo., second with 83 points, Alton came in third with 86 points, CBC finished fourth with 115 points, in fifth place was Belleville East with 125 points, Ft. Zumwalt West of St. Charles County, Mo. came in sixth with 134 points, Bluford Webber was seventh at 182 points, eighth place went to Centralia Christ Our Rock Lutheran with 194 points, in ninth place was East St. Louis, with 242 points, in 10th place was Madison, who had 269 points and 11th place went to Duchesne Catholic of St. Charles, Mo., with 283 points.
Collinsville and Springfield Southeast also entered runners in the race, but not enough to record a team score.
After a sub-par showing at the First To The Finish meet in Peoria last weekend, Edwardsville head coach George Patrylak was hoping that his team could reestablish some confidence going into the meet.
“Coming off last week at Peoria, we were hoping for the opportunity to gain back a little bit of confidence,” Patrylak said. “There were 11 full teams in the boys’ race, some of which we saw at Granite City and we were hoping to put a lineup that could win a championship. Just like at Mud Mountain, sophomore runner Jackson Amick displayed his dominance at competing at our home course. His second-place finish was 10 seconds within Geo (Patrylak’s) winning time from last year.”
Edwardsville’s win was a very important one, with big meets coming up in the next two weeks, and the Tigers were able to rise up and run well.
“The boys’ win means much more because we remained composed and showed much more competitiveness than they did last week,” Patrylak said. “As a coach, this is the kind of statement you hope will show at this point in the season, after a less than solid performance the week before.”
The individual winner was Jaxon Copeland of Ft. Zumwalt West, who won with a time of 16:50.8, with Amick second at 17:01.7 and Perfulfi placing third at 17:07.9. Fourth place went to CBC’s Devon Alexander at 17:13.1 and teammate Conner Wunderlich was right behind in fifth at 17:13.2. Brice Shearburn of Burroughs was sixth at 17:24.2, in seventh place was Max Ziegler of East, coming in at 17:32.7, Thomas was eighth at 17:40.0, in ninth place was Ted Spetnagle of the Bombers at 17:42.2 and Andrew Gonski of Collinsville rounded out the top ten at 17:46.8.
To go along with the top three runners, the Tigers saw Scott Baxter come in at 18:13.5, Sam Wittek was in at 18:17.8, Ben Ziobro was right behind at 18:20.0 and Parker Weaver had a time of 18:28.9. 
The Redbirds were led by Simon McClaine, who had a time of 18:07.8, with Alex Macias in at 18:10.2, Christian Kotzamanis had a time of 18:22.3, Victor Humphrey’s time was 18:57.0, River Wrischnik was in at 19:01.8 and John Krafka came home at 19:46.2.
Cortez Sanders led the Flyers with a time of 20:29.9, with Demarlynn Taylor in at 21:51.0, Desmond Ryan had a time of 22:26.0, Armonie Jones was in at 22:32.2 and Kenton Taylor had a time of 27:27.6.
The Tigers will compete in the Palatine Invitational next Saturday morning in northwest suburban Chicago, then return to Detweiler Park in Peoria for the Peoria Invitational on Oct. 1.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
