Benet runs away with Royal-Cadet
Taking it a little slow led to a fast finish for Benet on Saturday at the Royal-Cadet Invitational hosted by Marmion.
Benet coach Scott Brooks wanted to see his team save something for the middle mile. The Redwings did just that, and by the time the runners were coming into the chute Benet was in prime position with the first, third, seventh, eighth, 11th, 12th and 13th-place finishes.
Benet won the invite with 30 points. Batavia (55), Geneva (116), Oak Park-River Forest (121) and Plainfield East (158) rounded out the top five.
The Redwings went out at the same pace through 800 meters as their frosh-soph team which left plenty in their tank for a strong kick.
“We had some races when we start out really fast and today we tried to stay calm and take it easy,” race winner Audrey Blazek said. “The girl in front started fast and I knew after the mile I started picking it up (I could catch her).”
Blazek, a junior, finished sixth at this race a year ago on a muddy course. She took the lead from Oak Park’s Erin Schrobilgen a little past the mile mark and won by 32 seconds with a time of 18:53.
“That was a big race for Audrey,” Brooks said. “I looked at her at the mile and said, ‘This race is over, isn’t it?’ She knew what she had left in the tank. She is starting to understand how good she is. I thought she ran a fantastic race.”
After Blazek, Maddy Gilleran (19:36.1), Alexis Mayfield (20:07.6), Liz Johnson (20:14.4) and Peggy Flavin (20:33.4) made up Benet’s top five. The Redwings, fifth last week at the Jeff Leavey Invitational in St. Charles, ran just the race Brooks hoped.
Batavia also had a lot to like Saturday. With normal front-runner Rachael Spalding taking the ACT, freshmen Alicia Grant and Lexi Slome led the Bulldogs with a 4-5 finish.
“I felt good,” Grant said. “The beginning was kind of tough. Lexi and I pushed through it and we kept pushing each other all through the forest.”
Batavia coach Chad Hillman has a strong mix of returning runners and talented freshmen this year. Another freshman Amanda Rempert took ninth, sophomore Jessica Roach was 18th and C.J. Iwanicki 19th.
“I think we did great,’ Grant said. “At the beginning of the race we all talked about how we will push through and we all did it throughout the race. We got started running in sixth, seventh and eighth grade and that makes a big difference.”
A freshman also came in first for Geneva, Kylie Monahan, who took 10th.
“I’m very happy, I’m glad I could pull it off,” said Monahan, who ran her first varsity race after taking sixth in the frosh-soph race last weekend at the Leavey Invitational.
“I had one of my better races. I’m glad I could run a longer course even if it’s .1 (the girls ran a 3.01 mile course Saturday). It’s always very difficult. You can tell the difference the last couple meters, really hard.”
Monahan is one of the newcomers coach Bob Thomson is looking for to follow in the footsteps of the stellar Geneva runners the last few years. The Vikings’ top five runners Saturday were freshmen: Courtney Reynolds (16th), Marin Leone (23rd), Sydney Smith (33rd) and Jill McDowell (34th).
“It’s the start of a new year, a new tradition of good cross country running,” Monahan said.
Wheaton Academy finished sixth and Rosary seventh.