Lake Park HS (east campus); Roselle, IL-
The projected steamy conditions for the 49th Annual Harvey Braus Invitational hosted by Lake Park HS came to fruition as meet officials moved the traditionally later-starting varsity races to the beginning of the event log. The girls started at 9 a.m. CST, followed by the boys one half-hour later. Unfortunately, high heat indexes, in which an unspecified number of runners did not finish, prompted meet officials to cancel the remaining races (JV Boys, F/S Boys, open girls).
The opening and closing monologue of the girl's race was this: #1 Downers Grove North. What would they do after an impressive victory in last weekend's meet Mike Kuharic Invitational? The Trojans would deploy the same tactic of sticking together for nearly the first half of the three-mile race. They were leading by 19 points with a mile to go and held on to beat their rivals, #2 York, 51-63. The winner was the upstart freshman from York, Karlin Janowski, who stuck with the leaders Veronica Znajda (Sr., Prospect) and Annika Swan (Jr., Chicago St. Ignatius) for 95% of the race before jetting off for the win in 16:53.
The boys were just as spectacular as the girls. Immediately, Wheaton-Warrenville South seniors Josiah Narayanan and Aiden Noel got to the front of the pack ahead of the field and were never threatened with first and second-mile splits of 4:46 and 9:47/9:53, respectively. Narayanan was essentially solo during the final mile and won with a time of 14:31.
The team battle between #23 Chicago Lane Tech and #13 Wheaton-Warrenville South was tight. The Champions and the Tigers each fielded less than the allotted 8-man maximum, so the margin of error was small. In the end, Lane's strong scoring pack, which was 48 seconds, overcame a 1-2 finish to win 68-78.
*BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR A FULL RECAP ON SUNDAY!