With eyes focusing on other more hyped up match-ups, the Mid-Suburban League Championship Meet certainly held its own in Illinois. In the boys race, Palatine won their fifth straight conference title, beating runner-up Hersey by 22, 62-84, while Hersey senior Kevin Havel won the individual title by 13 seconds. The girls race was a surprise. While many expected Hoffman Estates to challenge for top three, few expected them to win. HE beat Barrington by four points, 92-96, while Amber Stack (Wheeling) and Annette White (Prospect) tied at the line for first.
ILRunners.com Mid-Suburban League Coverage - Meet Wrap-Up
Boys
One of the deepest fields in the state ran at the Mid-Suburban League Championships Saturday. Five ranked teams (Palatine, Hersey, Conant, Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates) competed head-to-head, in what was a very deep and talented field. From the gun, Kevin Havel (Hersey), Mat Smoody (Palatine) and Jeff Thode (Conant) took out the pace, all three runners looking relaxed and fast. At the mile, Havel and Smoody gapped Thode just a little, and that gap continued to grow over the rest of the race. Heading into the 1.5 mile mark, Smoody made a move to try and gap Havel a bit, which worked for a while, however, Havel caught back up to Smoody and ran away from there.
As the race neared the finish, Havel looked poised and finished strong, for his second consecutive conference title in 14:10. Smoody used whatever energy he had left to fend off Hersey junior Eric Stanton 14:23-14:25. Stanton ran the race of the day. Kevin O'Brien of Palatine was fourth in 14:30, while Nathan Rutz (Schaumburg) rounded out the top five in 14:31.
The team race was interesting. As predicted, Palatine won the team title with relative ease, beating Hersey 62-84. Schaumburg snuck up for third with 98 points, looking very strong through their top four. Conant finished three points back of Schaumburg for fourth, while Barrington and Hoffman Estates rounded out the top six, scoring 139 and 146 points respectively.
Girls
The race that really burned up the course was the girls varsity race. From the gun a large group of girls took to running a very fast pace. With all the key contenders up front, Amber Stack (Wheeling), Annette White (Prospect), Kali Dalton (Conant), Colleen Standridge (Palatine) and Rebecca Tracy (Barrington), along with a couple others, led the way. Through the two mile mark, Stack and White pulled away from the rest of the pack, as the varsity field by then strung out immensly.
In the final straight, Stack and White dueled, each throwing in surge after surge. In the final five meters, White pulled up next to Stack, both of them registering 17:04 at the finish. While both girls were given the conference individual title, Stack shows up first in the results at this point. Behind those two, Dalton, Standridge and Tracy finished 3-4-5, starting the fun team scoring.
The team standings were close to the casual observer. Palatine had a couple girls very high up, as did Barrington, but Hoffman Estates ran a great 1-4 pack up front, looking like an easy favorite. However, their fifth runners faded, with Barrington taking advantage of that, and had a solid pack of three (their 3-5 runners) finish very hard. In the end, Hoffman Estates eaked out the win, beating Barrington 92-96. Palatine took third with 100 points, while Propsect looked strong scoring 110 points for fourth.