February 11, 2025
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Cross country: Princeton to host 16 teams for Gary Coates Invite

By Kevin Hieronymus
Princeton's Payton Frueh races to the finish line at the Oregon Open Cross Country Meet at Oregon High School on Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023. Frueh finished 22nd out of 122 runners in 22:37.

Princeton's Payton Frueh races to the finish line at the Oregon Open Cross Country Meet at Oregon High School on Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023. Frueh finished 22nd out of 122 runners in 22:37. PHS will be hosting its Gary Coates Invitational on Saturday, starting at 9 a.m. (Earleen Hinton/Shaw Media)

Seventeen teams will be running in Saturday’s Princeton Gary Coates Invitational cross county meet at Zearing Park on the south side of Princeton.

The F/S boys race will get the day started at 9 a.m. followed by the girls at 9:25 a.m., the varsity boys at 10 a.m. and the open race at 10:30 a.m.

The awards presentation will be held at 11:15 a.m.

Princeton will be joined by local teams from Amboy, Bureau Valley, Fieldcrest, Hall, Kewanee, LaSalle-Peru, Mendota, Morris, Morrison and Sterling Newman.

Other participating schools are Knoxville, Lowpoint-Washburn/Roanoke-Benson, Mercer County, Orion, Rockridge and Sherrard.

The varsity races will be 3.0 miles around the Zearing Park terrain while the F/S boys and open races will be 2.0 miles.

Due to the recent loss of some teams, PHS will allow unlimited entries in all races.

Notes: St. Bede, which has been a regular participant in the Coates Invite, will now be running at the Peoria Invite at Detweiller Park on Saturday. ... Bureau Valley will host its Dale Donner Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 16 in Walnut.

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