Mattoon’s Brock Davee cut five seconds from his time last weekend during Saturday’s CHS Invitational to finish 23rd in the Race to the Finish cross country event at Peoria’s Detweiller Park

Davee clocked in at 16 minutes, 9.6 seconds, followed by Sam Ferrar in 17:35.4 in 145th place. More than 500 runners competed in the boys event.

Mattoon boys took 41st overall.

Hallee Perry ran a PR in finishing in 22:19.6 for the Green Wave girls. Charleston’s Ila Richter followed 12 seconds later in 22:31.5, followed by Amber Weiss (23:21.5) and Lilly Long (23:32.4).

Charleston boys, meanwhile, finished six spots back in 47th. Luke Newell running because he did not have a conflict with soccer, finished in 18:46. Freshman Blake Homann ran a new PR in 18:34.

“He ran a really smart race,” CHS boys coach Greg Rogers said, “moving up the last two miles of the race and kicking in a good finish. While most of the boys were able to drop some time off of their CHS Invite times, we need to work on running strong through the second mile,” Rogers said. “It was definitely our weak point as most ran 45 seconds to one minute slower in their second mile than their first. A lot of that comes down to mental toughness, and I plan on having the boys work on consistency by running more mile repeats workouts. Our new kids are learning how to run 3 miles and I’m excited to see our improvement as the season progresses.”