Centralia, IL — This past Saturday, the Centralia Cross Country Invitational brought together several 2A high school teams from the region for a day of great competition. The invite kicked off early in the morning with teams gathering at the Centralia Foundation Park. In the boys’ varsity race, 8 teams battled it out with Mt. Vernon barely edging out the Carterville Lions by 2 points for the top team honors. Carterville’s August Anderson chased the lead pack of Darius Ivy (Mt. Vernon), Zion Wilkins (Carbondale), and Alex Gordon (Effingham) throughout the entire race. In the end it was Ivy taking 1st place in 16:08, Wilkins in 2nd 16:13 and Anderson in 3rd with a 16:20 finish time. Anderson’s teammates James Samples and Reece Scott sprinted across the finish line next for the Lions finishing 9th and 10th in 16:53 and 16:56. Mason Webb was close behind and took 16th place in 17:10 followed by Rowan Beyke in 23rd with 17:29. Nick Wilhelm worked on staying with Beyke during the race and finished 2 spots behind him in 17:41. Nick Korte was the 7th runner for Carterville and completed the race in 18:31.  In Girls Varsity action, Lyla Seaman made a statement for herself and raced with the front runners from Marion, Carbondale and Effingham. In the end, Seaman was able to grab a solid 3rd place and finished in 19:15 to pace the Lions. Freshman Laney Sambursky ran a fast 19:43 for 6th place and Marcela Wood was 16th in 21:31. Lillian Carsrud grabbed 20th in 22:01. Landry Crain finished out the top 5 scorers for Carterville in 22:38 good for 25th place. Alissa Ruiz added a solid effort with a 22:44 for the 3 mile course and Leina Jaimet landed a 42nd finish in 24:10. The Carterville Lions ended in 2nd place, only 5 points behind the winning team from Effingham HS. The Lions were without top runner Molly Robertson who did not race on Saturday. In JV action for the girls, Isabella Dion raced to 1st place in 23:29 and set a new PR for herself. Other girls racing included Aubrey Baldi and Kylie Davey, both who set PR's in this race, and Aubrey Bahr and Zi Zhang.  In the boys JV race, Jack Robertson led Carterville in 18:33 good for 4th place. Also running for the Lions were Liam Sylwester and  Vincent Lin, who both got a PR on the course. Mitchell Carsrud, Ivan Stojanovski, and Braeden Erwin also raced for the Lions.