3A-
[Boys]
Meet the key teams: #1 Downers Grove North, #3 New Trier, #5 Plainfield South, #7 Plainfield North, #9 Highland Park, #12 Evanston, #13 Naperville Central, #15 Lyons, #17 Yorkville, #22 Deerfield, #23 Batavia, #24 Hinsdale Central, Lincoln-Way Central, Riverside-Brookfield
Here is the lowdown: Defending state champion Plainfield South was 2-0 at Detweiller last year. They also won the FTTF in a dominating fashion over Downers Grove North. Graduation losses aside, the Cougars will have the state's top-rated duo in Camyn Viger (Sr.) and Dylan Maloney (Jr.). Viger is the defending champ and worthy of at least matching his best of 14:22. Maloney could surprise some folks and slide to the top of the scale. The loss of #3 man Gavin Borger (Sr) will be felt, so the supporting cast must come through.
The tables could be turned around as the DGN wears the #1 tees. The Trojans look formable with star power runner Ryan Eddington (Jr.) and an incredible unit as deep as the team entry limit of ten. All of them could run under 16:00 on Saturday. This will be the first time this season that the Trojans will be sitting dead red and looking for a dominant team performance.
New Trier is an upstart team that finished second at the highly-rated Hinsdale Central Red Devil Invite last weekend by a point to Hersey. The Trevians are led by junior Ben Crane, who won his first significant invite title last weekend. With a runner as good as Crane, holding a scoring split in the 1:15 range might be good enough to place second and validate the excellent summer training that most pundits have heard about.
Plainfield North is ready to factor into the top five standings. The 'Cats were fourth a year ago, and with the likes of Quinn Davis (Jr.) and Owen Stahl (Sr.), the changes appear like a good match.
As we highlighted earlier, it's Viger's to lose, but some of the names we mentioned are not Patsies. Lyons Twp is a team shooting for a top-five placement, but their top runner Nicholas Strayer (Sr), should be considered a title threat.
[Girls]
Meet the key girls teams: #3 Naperville North, #5 Naperville Central, #6 Lagrane Lyons, #7 Barrington, #8 Minooka, #9 Yorkville, #11 Edwardsville, #14 Wheaton-Warrenville South, #15 Plainfield North, #20 Aurora (Metea Valley), #21 Batavia, #23 New Trier, #24 Evanston, McHenry, Rockton Hononegah, Wheaton North, Vernon Hills
Outlook: The season's first mega block invitational is right here with 13 ranked teams in the field- six of them are in the top 10. Naperville North is the defending champ with 63 points and will aim to prove they are better than last year. The Huskies opened their season in Iowa and finished second among that state's elite teams. They ran without senior leader Julie Piot, who was out on a college visit. Sophomore Shania Tandon and her twin sister Rianna Tandon led the way at Pleasant Valley. All seven runners were in the top 30.
Naperville Central is a good squad despite losing by a sizable margin to Prospect last weekend at Hinsdale Central. The good news is the Red Hawks have a legitimate ace runner in Liv Phillips (Sr). She could walk away with the victory. Ava Hendren (Sr), one of their key runners, did not run well. The bad news is they had a scoring split of three minutes. That will need to come down hugely.
Barrington is still searching for someone to close out their scoring. There is no doubt the main girl in the field is Scout Storms (Jr), who was victorious a year ago. The Fillies are extremely pleased with her contributions.