Men's cross country receives second at Illinois-Springfield

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The men's cross country team ran in their first multi-team meet of the 2021 fall season and were the second place team in a seven team meet hosted by Illinois-Springfield.

The first Panther across the finish line was Gianni Estrada with a time of 22:33. He kept pace with the pack of the top five finishing runners and found himself just seven seconds behind the winner.

Greenville collected 52 points and solidly claimed their second place position. Illinois-Springfield, the meet winner, had a perfect score of 15 points. Mineral Area College was behind Greenville with 83 points.

After a host of Illinois-Springfield runners and a Mineral Area runner claimed the seventh through 12th positions, Greenville's Kaleb Carlson, Joe Gomez, Jeremiah Perry, and Collin Kessinger snagged the 13th through 16th place positions. The No. 2 through No. 5 GU runners were separated by a span of less than 18 seconds.

Carlson managed to clock a time of 23:36, and Gomez posted a time of 23:45.

Perry and Kessinger each finished in 23:53, but Perry edged out Kessinger by three hundredths of a second.

The Panthers will return action on Friday, Sept. 17, at Olivet Nazarene's Midwest Intercollegiate.