By Erin Hayes
Gargoyle staff reporter
Posted Monday, Sept. 18, 2006, The OG, sports

TUSCOLA — Uni sophomore Malcolm Taylor proved once again this weekend that he is one of the top cross country runners in the area, taking sixth place at the Tuscola Invitational on Saturday. There were 120 runners who finished the race.

Taylor improved his personal-record time at this meet by five seconds, lowering it to 16:39. His previous best was 16:44, recorded a week earlier at the Peoria Woodruff Invitational. Taylor missed out on winning the award for top sophomore at the meet by just 2.3 seconds to fifth-place Josh Clark of Monticello.

The boys placed 12th out of 15 scoring teams with 279 points. Freeburg, the top team, had a total of 57 points.

Junior Austin Rundus did not compete, due to injury. This is the second meet he has had to sit out this season. Two other varsity runners from Uni were absent as well: sophomore Cheng Luo, due to illness, and freshman Jack Snyder, due to travel.

Due to the absences of three varsity runners, some younger Uni runners got experience at Tuscola as part of Uni's top seven. The rest of the varsity times were:

— Marquis Wang, 20:04, 69th
— Nathan Smith, 20:19, 73rd
— Andrew Weatherhead, 20:33, 76th
— Carl Zielinski, 20:51, 82nd
— Nick Zukoski, 23:12, 112th
— Ben Suslick, 25:22, 115th

Up next: The boys travel to Clinton for a quad meet Tuesday.

2006 VARSITY RESULTS
(Meets at the U of I Illini Meadows in bold; courses are three miles unless otherwise indicated)

Aug. 29: Kickapoo Kickoff Classic, 6th (points to be posted)
Top Uni runner: Austin Rundus, 3rd overall (17:30)

Sept. 2: Chrisman Cowchip Classic, 8th (50 pts)
Top Uni runner: Malcolm Taylor, 1st in No. 2 flight (17:11)

Sept. 5: Twin City Championship, 5th (87 pts)
Top Uni runner: Malcolm Taylor, 4th overall (17:41)

Sept. 9: Peoria Woodruff Invitational, 19th (points to be posted)
Top Uni runner: Malcolm Taylor, 23rd overall (16:44)

Sept. 12: Home Meet, 2nd (39 points)
Top Uni runner: Malcolm Taylor, 1st overall (17:29)

Sept. 16: Tuscola Invitational, 12th (279 pts)
Top Uni runner: Malcolm Taylor, 6th overall (16:39)