Tuscola edges Benton in classic and dramatic race for Class 1A team title.

Gavin Genisio pulls away to repeat as Class 1A individual winner

By Michael Newman

Peoria, Ill – It came down to the final mile to decide who would win the Class 1A team title in the IHSA State XC Championships Saturday morning at Detweiller Park. Benton and Tuscola had been ranked the top two teams in Class 1A heading into this race with no other team expected to be near them

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It held true entering the final mile with Tuscola holding just a one point lead ahead of Benton. The hero for Tuscola may have been Blake McLeese. Their #3 runner Josiah Hortin was fading in the final mile and Benton was starting to move. McLeese, just a sophomore, had missed both the regional and sectional races due to an injury. He fought back to pass 17 runners in the final mile to help the Warriors win their first state championship with 97 points. Benton scored 104 points for a hard fought second-place finish.

He ran the best races we could today. I am proud of them,” Benton Coach Brent McLain said  after the race. “So did they (Tuscola). What else could we do?”

Conditions were horrible in 2022 when Gavin Genisio splashed his way to a state title. The same scenario played out in this race except for the rain and the mud. Genisio and Isaac Teel challenged each other for the win last year. They knew each other very well having run against each other in middle school. The two runners went through the first mile in 4:35 with Tuscola’s Jackson Barrett and Josiah Hortin a second back. The pace changed up the second mile as the Genisio and Teel made their move in the triangle portion of the course opening up a lead of 14 seconds on the two Tuscola runners. Teel was close to the fans on the right side of the course finding his path. Genisio was running the tangents just waiting to move. Teel made a little move which Genisio reacted to immediately. There was nothing that Teel could do when the defending champion made his final move with a half mile to go. Genisio’s time of 14:12.56 was almost 17 seconds ahead of Teel (14:29.39).

“I’ve raced Isaac so many times since seventh grade. He was making little surges tested me. It’s a mental thing he uses on me,” Genisio said. “I just had to cover the move and keep pushing on.”

Four of the top six runners in this race were from either Tuscola or Benton. Jackson Barrett of Tuscola ran 14:40.55 as his team’s top runner finishing third. Gabriel McLain of Benton ran 14:45.08 to finish fourth. Isaiah Hill of Elmwood moved up through the race ending up finishing fifth (14:48.95).

Tuscola’s team was led by Barrett and then Will Foltz running 14:51.24 to finish sixth. Josiah Hortin ran 15:08.18 to place tenth. Then came McLeese with his move in the final mile to run 15:38.14 to finish 30th. Xander Neamtu was the team’s fifth runner finishing 74th.

Benton also had three all-state runners with Genisio, McLain, and Cole Buchanan finishing 13. (15:13.04). Mason Tieffel (56th) and Kaden Blades (62nd) were the team’s fourth and fifth runners.

Elmwood’s packing behind the top five finish from Hill helped the Trojans win a trophy placing third with 166 points. Aiden Faulkner was Elmwood’s second runner as he ran 15:46.86 to finish 40th. Mika Nelson was two second behind finishing 42nd followed by Reed Florey (51st) and LJ Higgs (78th). The overall top five split was 83 seconds. The split from Faulkner and Higgs was 26 seconds.

One of the biggest surprises was that Northridge Prep, who won the Kankakee McNamara Sectional and a 10-11 team scored 202 points to finish fourth behind an all-state performance from Brady Kataoka who finished 17th. Northridge Prep ran a 57 second split in their top five runners. Eureka finished fifth (213 points) with Carson Lehman (36th), Andrew Perry (38th),and Brady Monk (43) finishing within three seconds of each other.