St. Charles East Boys Edge Neuqua Valley At Twilight Invite

Micah Wilson and Nicolas Dovalosky gave their teams their all Friday Night

PHOTOS I VIDEOS I RESULTS

Naperville IL-

Naperville North High School was the scene of some pre-race hype. In a lot of folk's minds, the battle for supremacy among the 3A titans would be between #3 Neuqua Valley and #4 St. Charles East. Both of these units have only faced minimal resistance this season. Ranked foes Naperville North, Wheaton North, and Waubonsie Valley have to be considered for competitive sake. 

Neuqua Valley got off to a great start from a mental perspective in winning the first race of the day. The Wildcats took the first seven spots and notched a perfect score of 15. Reserve runner junior Nick Rohlwing has a personal best of 15:42, but he just missed being added to the "A" unit. Rohlwing controlled the race for the most part and came home for the win in 16:11.

Mamadu Diallo of Metea Valley hung back during the opening mile of the white division. The pace was a tad bit slow in 5:35. Things would pick up and Diallo took the victory with a time of 16:21.

Next up was the blue division race. This took a drastically different approach with the opening half-mile in 2:21 and the first mile in 4:55. The pack of four paced by Ryan Schreiner of Wheaton North who if continued this pace, was going to run a serious time. Schreiner was able to hold off Brandon Kamp of Naperville Central for the win 15:06-15:09. Both runners earned PB's and established themselves for the post-season.

The Twilight Invite switched to a combined results model stretched out over three division color races. The final edition of the evening would the orange race which featured the top squads. The race would open at a respectable pace but slightly faster than the blue. St. Charles East junior star Micah Wilson and teammate senior Luke Schildmeyer, Neuqua Valley senior Nicolas Dovalovsky, and St. Charles North senior Noah Eng hit the checkpoint in around 4:52-4:54. 

As the race hit the track through the 2k mark, it appeared as though St. Charles East, Naperville North, and Neuqua Valley were the teams in the title hunt overall. The runners then ushered back out to the rear of the stadium and into semi-darkness.

The second mile saw Wilson take a few steps on Dovalovsky in 9:46. Neuqua Valley tightened the lead on St. Charles East with a strong pack to counter three runners in the top five. Of course, the final stages of the race would be decided by strong finishes.

Wilson could not pull away from Dovalovsky which meant the tension got real with just 400m to go as they both entered the track. With less than 300m to go, Dovalovsky made his move on the inside and pushed hard to slide past Wilson. It was all the momentum that he needed to take the win in 14:44. Wilson grabbed the runner-up spot in 14:46. The Saints grabbed third and fourth courtesy of Schildmeyer and Zach Loomis- it was enough to hold back the rush of the Wildcats.