Hannah Griffin Committed to Mars Hill College

Hannah Griffin will become the first ICC female runner to compete at the 4-year level this fall when she toes the line for Mars Hill College. The Division II school from North Carolina is located 18 miles north of Asheville at an elevation of 2330 feet in the mountains of Western North Carolina. The Baptist liberal arts school was founded in 1856 and competes in the South Atlantic conference. Last year, both the men's and women's cross country teams were conference champions, and with just one women graduating, prospects are even better for 2008. Hannah will be graduating from ICC at the end of summer school and intends to major in Religion at MHC.

Four Student-Athletes Earn Distinguished All-American Honors

Three graduating sophomores plus one precocious freshman earned Distinguished Academic All-American honors from the NJCAA. To achieve the distinguished honor, you must maintain at least a 3.8 GPA with at least 45 credit hours taken. The group is led by Samantha Conlee of Dunlap, who graduated with a perfect 4.0. The Elementary Education major will be attending The University of Illinois - Urbana in the fall.

Marissa Menke, an alum of Peoria Manual, graduated with a 3.822 average. She is a nursing major and will be attending Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville this fall. Justin Phillis of Morton is graduating with a 3.831 GPA. He was an undecided Arts and Science major at ICC but will be studying Youth Ministries and Digital Media at Greenville College in the fall.

The precocious soph-to-be is Darci Knapp of Eureka. With a year to go, she has already completed 46 credit hours while maintaining a 3.935 GPA.

Congratulations to all four and best wishes to the graduates!

Honor Roll Meet Results

Results from the Peoria Journal Star Honor Roll Meet:

Boys:
800 meters Kyle Lueken 4th 2:03.69
Cody Roeder 5th 2:04.26
1600 meters T.J. McMorrow 2nd 4:32.54
Cody Roeder 11th 4:52.00
4 x 800 meter relay Limestone 1st (Kyle Lueken)
East Peoria 2nd (Nick Leiby, Brock Kingsland)
Pekin 4th (Eric Hill)

Girls:
1600 meters Alyssa Imig 9th 5:46.16
3200 meters Brittany Carius 4th 11:59.98
4 x 800 meter relay Tremont 3rd (Alyssa Imig)
Richwoods 5th (Olivia Coker, Kim Luebcke)
IVC 7th (Alyssa Doerr)

Bloomington Pantagraph Honor Roll Meet:
800 meters Andrew Marshall 4th 2:02.5

Nice Job Cougars! (Now that you've graduated from HS, you are officially ICC Cougars.)

4 x 8's Rule at Girl's State

Three future Cougars brought home medals from the state finals of the 4 x 800 relay last Saturday. Bonni Martin ran a spectacular 2:26 on the third leg to move her Eureka team into striking position, and then Olivia Klaus finished off the gold-medal race with a 2:10 anchor. Not far behind in 4th was the quartet from Tremont, with Alyssa Imig running a leg. Also medalling in 8th was the team from PORTA, led by Katie Drendel. Katie and Alyssa had qualified individually in the 800 and 1600, respectively, but scratched to concentrate on the relay team effort.

Next up: The Peoria Journal Star and Bloomington Pantagraph Honor Roll meets Tuesday. Boys State on Friday and Saturday.

Not to be outdone by the frosh-to-be, Billy Miller won the 5000 meters at the Augustana Twilight meet last Friday with a PR time of 16:08. He's been putting in a good base this spring and looks forward to a great fall.

Future Cougars shine at Sectionals

Five future members of the ICC women's cross country team excelled in their track sectionals last Friday and three of them will extend their high school careers one more week at state. Alyssa Imig of Tremont won the 1600 meter run at the Macomb class A sectional with a time of 5:42.5. She also helped her 4 x 800 team to the title and a state meet berth. At the Beardstown sectional, Katie Drendel topped the 800 field with a 2:33.3, and, like Alyssa, was on the winning 4 x 8. One of the favorite 4 x 8 teams at state will be the one from Eureka, where Bonni Martin carries the batton. Her team won the Bloomington class A sectional with a fine 10:10 clocking. In the AA sectional at Bloomington, Brittany Carius lowered her PR in the 3200 meter run with an excellent 11:53.4, but unfortunately it was not enough to make state. The time, however, moved her into sixth place in this week's Peoria Journal Star Honor Roll. Three of the five ahead of her are state cross country champions. Also running well on a 4 x 8 team was Kim Leubcke of Peoria Richwoods. Her team ran 10:12.1 at the Bloomington sectional, but that too was not enough to make state in the tough AA field.

The boys will run their sectionals this week, but many of the future Cougars rank high on this week's Honor Roll. Shane Leiby of East Peoria ranks second in the 800 with his 1:56.5, which he ran in the Mid Illini Conference meet last Thursday. By the way, no less than eight soon-to-be Cougars ran in this meet! Brother Nick Leiby also makes the Honor Roll with his 2:01.6. Add a third ICC recruit, Brock Kingsland, and you have three fourths of the leading 4 x 8 team which ran an awesome 8:02.9 at conference. Also making the honor roll 4 x 8 teams are Kyle Lueken of Limestone, and Eric Hill of Pekin. Not yet making the list, but winning the Mid state 6 conference 800 was Cody Roeder of Peoria Woodruff.

Good luck to all of these runners at state and sectionals this week!