PEORIA — Senior Michelle Mehnert placed third at the Class 1A girls state meet this morning, the best individual finish by a Uni cross country runner — male or female — in school history.

On the boys side in 1A, junior Malcolm Taylor finished 29th out of 165 runners, the best performance by a Uni male runner in the state finals since Jeff Helrich placed 17th in 1998.

Mehnert ran the 3-mile course at Detweiller Park in 17 minutes, 58 seconds — a personal record. She finished only 5 seconds behind the second-place runner, Stephanie Brown of Tri-Valley. Olivia Klaus of Eureka won the race in 17:27.

Last year Mehnert finished seventh at state, running the same course in 18:06, which was her personal best until today.

This is the second year in a row that Mehnert has made school history at the state meet. In 2006 she broke the record for highest finish by a Uni female cross country runner. Laurel Herendeen's 15th-place showing in both 1991 and 1993 had been the previous girls record.

Today she outdid Adam Reynolds' fifth-place performance in the 1997 boys finals to set a new Uni standard regardless of gender. Coincidence or not, Reynolds was a top-caliber swimmer, just as Mehnert is.

As a team, the Uni girls placed ninth overall with 275 points. Winnebago won the title, scoring an astonishingly low 65 points. (Scoring in cross country is done by adding up the places of the top five runners of each team — the smaller the point total the better.)

At the 2006 state meet, the Illineks finished fourth with 176 points, just three points away from winning one of the trophies that go to the top three schools. Winnebago also won last year's championship, but with 131 points.

In today's race, the next-highest finisher for the Illineks was sophomore Elizabeth Russell, who placed 64th out of 167 runners, recording a time of 19:48. (She placed 43rd for team-scoring purposes, which means that 21 runners who qualified for state as individuals finished ahead of her.)

Senior Shivani Khanna came in 86th (60th), running the course in 20:06. Junior Elaine Gu turned in a time of 20:17, good for 93rd (67th). Senior Jennifer Roloff ended the scoring for Uni in 129th place (102nd) with a time of 21:01.

Also running today were sophomores Katherine Allen and Isaure Hostetter. Allen placed 131st (103rd, 21:08), followed by Hostetter in 140th (112th, 21:19).

Meanwhile, Taylor was the only member of the Uni boys team to qualify for the finals. In his first appearance at state, he covered the course in a personal-best time of 15:58.

He barely missed earning all-state honors, which go to the top 25 runners. Taylor was 11 seconds and just four spots behind the 25th-place runner, Dustin Cook of Rockford Christian (15:47).

Parker Thompson of Tremont won the race in 14:49. Winnebago won the team championship with 81 points.

Taylor was the first Uni male runner to advance to state since Drew Hauffe achieved the feat in 2003. Hauffe placed 81st out of 208 runners that year, recording a time of 16:21.

This is the first year in which the IHSA has divided cross country into three classes.

From 1946 to 1975, the IHSA had only a single class in the sport. The two-class system existed from 1976 to 2006.

Junior Malcolm Taylor (324) gets ready to pass several opponents during the Class 1A boys state meet in Peoria. Taylor finished 29th, the best performance by a Uni male runner at state since Jeff Helfrich's 17th-place finish in 1998. Gargoyle photo (click to enlarge)