Southwestern Illinois track at head of class
April 7th, 2008, 2:52 pm · Post a Comment · posted by sporter
Tuesday, April 8
By STEVE PORTER
If you followed area boys basketball the past season, you understood how rough it was to navigate through the choppy Southwestern Conference waters.
Edwardsville, O’Fallon and Alton — the top three teams — posted a composite 79-14 record and 12 of those defeats were to conference teams.
Now it’s spring and SWC guys track seems equally formidable. And when you throw in two-time defending state champ Cahokia of the nearby South Seven, you may see the Comanches and Flyers slugging it out for another IHSA title. East St. Louis was state runner-up in 2006-07.
In last Saturday’s Belleville West Invitational, which didn’t include Cahokia, the top FIVE teams came from the SWC.
East St. Louis won it with 130 points. Belleville East (90 points), Belleville West (86 points), O’Fallon (80.5 points) and Granite City (73 points) made solid showings.
In other words, you could have a pretty good team in SWC track and still finish fifth or sixth.
Edwardsville, Alton and Collinsville have some work to do. It’s a challenging task.
“The conference just keeps getting stronger,” East St. Louis coach Roscoe Whitfield said.
In Class A boys, defending sectional champ Carlinville is putting together another quality team. As for Class AA girls, East St. Louis is making plans to win its first state championship.
All figured, come mid-May and we’ll see some individual champions and perhaps another team champ or two.
Hang at the curve and stay in the fast lane. We’ll keep track of what’s going on around the bend.
