West Chicago's Sterne wins regional
Coming down the long final stretch at the Class 3A Naperville North regional on Saturday, West Chicago boys cross country runner Gunnar Sterne angled for position with Wheaton North's Caleb Philibrick and Aidin Askin.
“It's hard,” the Wildcats senior said. “You don't think you have it, but you just dig a little bit deeper. It comes to you.”
A surge of adrenaline came to Sterne about 100 yards from the finish line, where he passed Philibrick to retake the lead, then held on to win in 15:30.40.
“You've got to put yourself in position to go out front. At the end you just kind of go for it,” he said.
Philibrick placed second and Askin third just behind Sterne, helping their team to an easy first-place finish at DuPage River Park.
“That long stretch is always that daunting, I can see the finish but I'm so far away from it,” Wheaton North coach Nate Roe said. “Gunnar, the West Chicago kid, is a tough kid. He was runner-up at (DuPage Valley Conference) last week. So for Caleb, our No. 1, he had a great race last week but not quite where he wanted to finish. And for him to be on (Sterne's) heels is great.”
The Falcons finished with 38 points to second-place Naperville North's 75. WW South was third at 95, followed by Glenbard West, Naperville Central, West Chicago, Glenbard North and Benet.
“It went according to how we set it out,” Roe said. “It doesn't always go that way. Our goal was to have four in the top 10, and we did that.”
Nick Drendel and Jimmy Qiao placed seventh and eighth, respectively, for Naperville North.
“I ran as hard as I could for today,” Drendel said of the rain-soaked course. “The conditions are bad, but me and Jimmy really stuck together as a group and we kept on picking kids off next to each other. I think that's our strength.”
In the girls race, WW South sophomore McKenna Kiple outlasted teammate Mikayla Kightlinger down the stretch to win in 17:45.54, not that they were competing for the top spot.
“It's great, but it's just another step in the whole scheme of things. I love this because we switched orders. We don't have a No. 1 or No. 2 or No. 3 or No. 4, we have a team,” Tigers coach Rob Harvey, whose team also placed Lauren Mordini and Hope Schmelzle in the top 10.
“That is the true mark of a great team, is when you switch spots like that,” Harvey added.
The individual title didn't seem to matter to Kiple.
“(Kightlinger) and Lauren both really pushed me, and my goal really was just to try to stay with them, because they are really amazing runners, as is everybody else on the team,” Kiple said.
Glenbard West junior Maddie Nagle was third in 17:49.27, followed by Naperville Central junior Amanda Fox and Hilltoppers freshman Madeline Perez.
“We wanted to do well as a team, so I wanted to put myself out there and do well individually to help the team out,” Nagle said.
The Tigers defeated Glenbard West for the team title 27-35. Naperville North was third with 100 points, Naperville Central fourth at 103.