Franzen, Knap lead Illini Prairie Conference meet

By Fred Kroner

Freshman Savanna Franzen and senior Ava Knap were the individual leaders on Tuesday (Oct. 5) in the Illini Prairie Conference girls’ cross-country meet at Stanford Olympia.

Franzen was the individual champion in the 58-runner field, completing the 3-mile course in 18 minutes, 16.4 seconds.

Knap was the runner-up and was less than four seconds behind at 18:20.3.

The Spartans’ other competitors were: senior Kailyn Ingram (13^th in 20:04.6), sophomore Chloe Burkhalter (25^th in 21:00.0), senior Taryn Sexton (26^th in 21:08.9), senior Addie Allen (28^th in 21:18.6) and junior Kaytlyn Baker (48^th in 23:21.5).

In the team race, Monticello (ranked third in the state in Class 1A by milesplit.com) was the winner with 48 points. Tolono Unity (ranked second in the state in Class 1A) was next with 51 points and SJ-O (ranked sixth in the state in Class 1A) was third with 64 points.

The Spartans had one entrant in the open race. Sophomore Chloe Allen was 23^rd in 27:51.3.

SJ-O returns to action on Saturday (Oct. 16) in the Peoria Heights Patroit Invitational.