Senior Ruthie Welch (1) sets up a play for her teammates against Salt Fork in Saturday's Westville Invitational. The Illineks went 3-1 to finish second in the five-team tournament. Welch recorded 40 assists on the day, raising her career total to 702, a school record. Gargoyle photo (click to enlarge)

ALL OF UNI'S varsity sports teams played on Saturday, and the results were impressive. We've already published an article about Saturday morning's 2-0 win by the boys soccer team over Sullivan. Here's a roundup of the day's other sporting events.

GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY

Illineks keep up with the competition

PEORIA — Running against some of the best Class 1A teams in the state, the Illineks came in fourth at the Peoria Woodruff Invitational Saturday morning.

Senior Michelle Mehnert led Uni with a sixth-place finish. She ran the Detweiller Park 3-mile course in 19 minutes, 32 seconds — a 6:31 per-mile pace.

Shivani Khanna, also a senior, was next for the Illineks in 14th, running the IHSA state final course in 20:03. Sophomore Elizabeth Russell placed 17th (20:09), and junior Elaine Gu 24th (20:29).

Sophomore Katherine Allen, in her first year of high school cross country, finished the scoring for Uni, placing 81st (23:10).

The Illineks were without their usual No. 5 runner, senior Jennifer Roloff, who sat out because of soreness in her feet.

Uni finished with 126 points. The girls were close behind third-place Elmwood/Brimfield (116) and Eureka (108). Only meet champion Winnebago, with 52 points, was out of reach.

For more results from the girls meet, visit our scoreboard.

To see how this year's performance stacks up to last year's, visit our coverage of the 2006 meet.

The Illineks are the state's No. 3 team in Class 1A, according to the latest rankings by Illinois Prep Top Times.

BOYS CROSS COUNTRY

The pack shows its power

PEORIA — The last time a Uni boys cross country team qualified for the IHSA state finals was in 1997.

That streak might come to end this year. And if it does, you can thank the power of the pack.

A year ago, the Illineks placed 19th out of 24 teams at the Woodruff Invitational. On Saturday, Uni finished eighth out of 18 teams — and did so without top runner Malcolm Taylor, who sat out the meet.

Some of that improvement was no doubt due to the reorganization of IHSA schools into three classes for cross country. Uni remains a 1A school for the sport, but several teams that were Class A last year have moved up to 2A.

But even so, the jump from 19th to eighth was remarkable. The boys finished with 227 points, just 10 behind seventh-place Monmouth-Roseville and 19 behind sixth-place Delavan, a team that made it to the state finals last year. If Taylor had run today, it's likely that Uni would have surpassed both of those squads.

As it was, the Illineks outran several teams that were state finalists in 2006, including Tremont (10th, 263) and last year's state champion, Elmwood/Brimfield (11th, 264).

The clear strength of the 2007 Illineks is the pack. While a significant time gap usually exists between Taylor and his teammates, the spread between No. 2 and No. 6 is getting smaller with each meet.

On Saturday, sophomore Nathan Smith, usually the Illineks' No. 2 runner, led the team with a 43rd-place finish, covering the 3-mile Detweiller Park course in 17 minutes, 51 seconds.

Junior Isaac Chambers was just 2 seconds behind Smith in 45th place (17:53).

Uni's next three runners were the very model of a pack: senior Austin Rundus (52nd, 18:04), senior Jacob Olshansky (53rd, 18:05), and freshman Buck Walsh (54th, 18:09).

With that kind of performance, this year's squad might very well end the boys' 10-year dry spell of not qualifying for the IHSA state finals — which will be held, incidentally, at Detweiller Park.

For more results from the boys meet, visit our scoreboard.

To see how this year's performance compared to last year's, visit our coverage of the 2006 invitational.

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL

Uni meets challenge, places second in tournament

WESTVILLE — What a difference a year makes — or even a week.

This time last year the Uni girls volleyball team went 1-3 in the five-team Westville Invitational.

On Saturday the Illineks reversed that, going 3-1 and winning second place in a round-robin tourney featuring four solid opponents who rank among the toughest Uni will play this season.

The girls began the day with a 9 a.m. match against host Westville. The Illineks beat the Tigers in three games: 25-22, 20-25, 25-18.

Later in the morning Uni lost its only match of the day, falling to tournament champ Georgetown-Ridge Farm in three games: 25-13, 18-25, 21-25.

But when the girls played again at 2 p.m., they downed Heritage 25-17, 23-25, 25-21.

Uni's final match didn't begin until about 5 p.m. By then the Westville gym was stifling. A week ago, the Illineks started strong in a five-match tourney at DeLand-Weldon High School, winning two matches in the morning but losing three in the afternoon.

This time Uni got stronger as the tournament neared its conclusion. The Illineks beat Salt Fork in their first game 25-23. But it was the match's second game that showed how far the team had come in just seven days.

Falling behind 13-18, Uni went on to outscore Salt Fork 12-2 to take both the game and match.

"The girls played a great tournament today," coach Amanda Palla said. "It was a team effort, with everyone contributing. Rachel Skoza led the team in kills with 21, Karen Woodley led in blocks with 8, Jamie Weiser led in digs with 45, and Ruthie Welch led in aces and assists with 9 and 40 respectively. In the final game of the final match against Salt Fork, the girls dug deep and came back."

For more statistics from today's tournament, visit our scoreboard.

The night before the Westville Invitational, Uni traveled to Decatur Christian and won 25-21, 25-14 in an East Central Illinois Conference match.

The Illineks are now 7-5 overall and 2-2 in the ECIC as they head into Monday's road match against crosstown rival St. Thomas More.

GIRLS SWIMMING

Another year, another close win over U-High Chicago

CHICAGO — Not to be outdone by their peers, the Fighting Fish — the Uni girls swim team — paid a trip to University High Chicago Saturday afternoon and came away with their second victory of the season.

It was also the girls' second consecutive win over their lab-school rivals. Like last year's victory, this was a close one. Only a 5-point margin separated the teams.

Uni defeated the Maroons 94-89. Senior Katie Ryan won first place in three events: 100 free (1 minute, 3.28 seconds), 200 free (2:18.00), and the 200 free relay (2:01.49, with teammates Liz Allen, Aliisa Rantanen, and Deborah Ladd).

Also winning first place for Uni was sophomore Sian Best, who swam the 100 backstroke in 1:12.68.

"This was a really important meet for us because it's one of the closest meets we have all season," said Best. "It was a real morale booster for the team because we won. Everyone had really good swims, and there were some really close races."

To sum up the day, swimmer Maritza Mestre, who is also a Gargoyle staff reporter, got plenty of other comments from her teammates and head coach Howie Schein.

Sophomore Maria Gao: "This meet was incredibly fun because it was such a close meet and the U of Chicago High School is a lot like Uni. Everyone swam really well, and I know everyone was pushing it. And of course, winning was a bonus!"

Sophomore Diana Liu: "It was really great how we were all cheering for each other. It's always nice, for example, when I'm swimming breaststroke and I see a bunch of people waving their arms right before my turn. Anyway, I think we did a really good job, and it was an excitingly close meet!"

Freshman Ravathi Maturi: "This was a really fun and close meet. It was my first meet too, so it was a great way to start off the season. I was really excited that we won, especially because it was only by 5 points."

Freshman Kahlilah Cooke: "The meet was awesome. Just diving in the water gives you this huge rush of excitement, and to know my teammates were cheering made me feel so happy. The fact that we won was cool too, and it was a lot of fun meeting the other team."

Sophomore Liz Allen: "We did really well, and it's a really important meet that we can usually pull off if we work hard."

Coach Howie Schein: "It's always fun to swim versus Chicago U-High. We're always very evenly matched, and of course it's fun to win! Everybody swam pretty well today. Go Fighting Fish."