Yorkville won their second major invitational in the last three weeks (Colin Boyle photo)
It was an absolutely gorgeous morning to watch a cross country meet and the overflowing crowd that headed inside of the Deer Grove East Forest Preserve in Palatine proved that fact. The girls varsity race was one of two featured varsity races that commenced at 10:20am and the fun was about to begin...
2A #1 Yorkville won their first Palatine Meet of Champions team title scoring 82 points and in the process blew away a great field. 3A #12 LaGrange (Lyons Township) finished in the runner-up position tallying 135 pts ahead of 3A #3 Wheaton-Warrenville South's 155 nuggets. 3A #10 Palatine took fourth in front of long time rival 3A #4 Barrington 156-181.
It was Yorkville that came into this affair with something to prove despite being a four-time defending state champion in their classification. The Lady Foxes beat the then state's overall top team Naperville North at the First To The Finish Invite a few weeks ago with ease. But yet that victory was tainted with an asterisk because the Huskies were down two of their guns. So it seems a great team like Yorkville can't get respect even when they win. But that was then... coach Chris Muth was more concerned about today not yesterday and certainly not tomorrow. Wow, did his team respond in a big way! The opening mile began to show signs of what was to come. The 10-second spread on four girls 5:45-5:55 was better than anyone other team at that point... the Lady Foxes used junior leader Alexis Grandys to set the tone for the first two miles but she was captured by a fleet of her teammates just past the second mile. The end result was a chilling 12-second scoring split from sophomore Olivia Borowiak to freshman Nicole Greyer. Borowiak ran 18:02 followed by her teammates in 18:07, 18:09, 18:09, 18:14.
"Where's the love," chuckled Lyons Township head man Stetson Steele as he jogged past a flock of reporters and photographers prior to the start of the race. The truth of the matter about Lyons was that they are a team still in the emerging category. It is because of a lack of a true frontrunner that has them there. However, this team has had success with pack running. The Lions scorers started with freshmen Sarah Barcelona and Emily Henkel who were sandwiched in between the four Yorkville runners. It is hard to beat a great team with a 49 second split, but it was good enough to surprise everyone else and place second.
Wheaton South had some issues with the their scorers outside of top runners juniors Sarah Atkins and Allison McGrath early one. It was a tall task of chasing down teams whose pack appeared to be intact once the race took shape. Atkins and McGrath would go on to take 11th and 12th overall, but they had to fight hard each step for it. The plan of a first MOC title was gone by the two mile mark and the frustration from head coach Rob Harvey displayed that prominently as he urged his troops on. But he did say: "The year we got a state trophy [in 2009], we placed seventh here." So there is a silver lining in finishing third.
Palatine head Joe Parks appeared a bit more ecstatic than Harvey despite finishing a point back in fourth. The Lady Pirates had to deal with a slower start than normal with their meet projections, but the girls have been training very well of late. A key runner sophomore Lauryn Simons was set to return back into action for the first time this season. She suffered an ankle injury this summer that put her training on hold. "We were going to run her in the frosh race, but decided to hold her out one more time... she is ready to go," optimistic words by a coach who will have something to say in the state's trophy talk in November.
Barrington beat Palatine in their MSL Conference dual meet on Thursday but fell a little short of the Lady Pirates on Saturday. Long held up her end of the bargain with a third place but a 1:53 overall scoring split proved too much to overcome against the quality field of teams that MOC contains. Perennial power Assumption, KY was the top out of state team in seventh place with 216 points.