Albert Anastasio (206) is also ranked among the area's top 50 runners by The News-Gazette. Gargoyle photos by David Porreca (click to enlarge)

Langston Allston-Yeagle (205), now a senior, is one of five returning Uni runners who competed at the 2008 Class 1A state finals in Peoria.

Senior Jack Snyder (211) is another veteran of last year's finals. The new season begins Tuesday at the annual Kickapoo Kickoff Classic in Vermilion County.

URBANA — Following a fourth-place finish at the IHSA state meet last season, the second-best finish in school history, the Uni High boys cross country team lost its No. 1 runner, Malcolm Taylor, to graduation.

Taylor had been Uni’s only all-state runner this decade. So how do they expect to cope with the loss?

By getting even better.

“We want to qualify for the state meet again,” says head coach Doug Mynatt. “And the goal is to bring home one of those three trophies they hand out.”

And junior Ziran Shang has even loftier expectations.

“We want to win state, that’s pretty much it,” says the first-year varsity runner.

Only one Uni boys team has brought home a state trophy, and that was the 1995 squad that took third place.

“We have the potential to surpass that,” says senior Nathan Smith, who finished 43rd at last year's state meet.

The season will start Tuesday, when the boys and the girls teams will head to Kickapoo State Park for the annual Kickapoo Kickoff Classic.

The Illineks will be without two of their seven varsity runners from last year, with Taylor and his classmate Isaac Chambers having graduated.

But with a squad that runs 26 members deep, this year's team is poised not only to fill those two slots, but to run as fast as any Uni team in history.

“With [junior] Albert Anastasio running like he did last year at the state meet, and running a time (15:57) faster than Malcolm did as a sophomore, that gave them reason to be positive about the future,” says Mynatt.

“And with Nathan Smith running like he is now, coming off a really good summer of training — same thing with Albert — they’re both near or above 500 miles for the summer, healthy, ready to go. [Junior] Buck Walsh is still there. Ziran Shang is looking strong right now — he’s coming in looking relatively healthy and a lot stronger than I thought he would be.

“Even though they don’t have that marquee runner like Malcolm this year, the depth is a big factor this year.”

Anastasio, Smith, and Walsh were named to The News Gazette’s list of the area’s top 50 runners on Thursday. Add Shang, seniors Jack Snyder and Langston Allston-Yeagle, and a combination of sophomore Iain Konigsberg and seniors Andrew Weatherhead and Eric Fritzsche, and this year’s team is a formidable group.

DyeStat Illinois, an affiliate of ESPN Rise, however, pegged them to finish ninth in Class 1A in its preseason poll. Granted, the article erroneously reported that Anastasio had graduated. Smith, however, isn’t fazed by the rankings.

“I would actually prefer it that way. That’s kind of what happened last year. People didn’t notice us until later in the season. They didn’t realize what we could do until later in the season. I think it’s easier because it’s a lot easier to run without expectations.”

With or without expectations, one of the reasons the team has been successful has been its chemistry. This year, the Illineks will once again function as one.

“We have a lot of fun together,” says Anastasio. “That’s one of the reasons we’re so good as a team, because we work together well and we can pack it up well in races. That also keeps us sane through the long season and hard workouts because we’re cooperating as a team. We all get along well.”

Even though the team will lose up to five from the varsity squad after this season, the outlook remains bright for the coming years.

“There’s always hope for Uni long-distance running for whatever reason since Doug’s been coach,” says Allston-Yeagle.

As for this year?

“It’s going to be a good season,” says Shang.

With the talent this year’s team has, that may be an understatement.

2009 Boys Cross Country Roster

• Langston Allston-Yeagle (sr)
• Albert Anastasio (jr)
• Wyatt Bensken (fr)
• Austin Black (jr)
• Henry Carlton (fr)
• Jack Feser (jr)
• Eric Fritzsche (sr)
• Mohammed Jaber (jr)
• Luke Karmazin (so)
• Iain Konigsberg (so)
• Stirling Lemme (fr)
• Ryan McAllister (fr)
• Robert McMillen (so)
• Ryoske Minami (so)
• Steven Morse (so)
• Charlie Newman-Johnson (jr)
• Rohit Palekar (so)
• Miles Ross (jr)
• Ziran Shang (jr)
• Nathan Smith (sr)
• Jack Snyder (sr)
• John Vaughen (jr)
• Buck Walsh (jr)
• Horace Wang (sr)
• Andrew Weatherhead (sr)
• Nicholas Zukoski (sr)

2009 Boys Cross Country Schedule

• Sept. 1: Kickapoo Kickoff Classic
• Sept. 5: Chrisman Cowchip Classic
• Sept. 8: Twin City Championship
• Sept. 12: Peoria Woodruff Invitational
• Sept. 15: Uni Home Meet
• Sept. 19: Tuscola Invitational
• Sept. 22: Clinton Quad Meet
• Sept. 26: St. Joseph-Ogden Spartan Classic
• Oct. 10: Cumberland Invitational
• Oct. 24: IHSA Class 1A Regionals
• Oct. 31: IHSA Class 1A Sectionals
• Nov. 7: IHSA Class 1A Finals