Led by Sian Best's first-place performance in the 200-yard individual medley, the Uni girls finished second in Saturday's triangular meet held in Charleston. Uni swimmers won second place in seven events as the girls finished ahead of host Charleston and behind meet winner O'Fallon.

The Uni boys finished 11th out of 26 scoring teams Saturday at the Spartan Classic. On the day, they scored 252 points. Last year at this meet the Illineks placed 19th out of 26 teams and scored 441 points. In one year the boys cut 189 points from their score and jumped eight spots in the standings. With even more improvement as their goal, the Illineks will be off for the next two weeks to "pack on the miles," as senior Austin Rundus put it. They won't run in another meet until the Mahomet-Seymour Invitational on Oct. 6.

The girls narrowly missed winning the St. Joseph-Ogden Spartan Classic on Saturday. Senior Michelle Mehnert placed fifth out of 156 runners as the Illineks, ranked No. 4 in Class 1A, finished second behind No. 3-ranked Eureka. Running without senior Shivani Khanna, Uni fell short of the title by only 6 points. Twenty-two scoring teams competed.