Breakaway win for Van Vlierbergen in Bartlett
Jacobs senior Lauren Van Vlierbergen broke away from the pack early in Bartlett's 13th annual Flyin' Hawk Cross Country Invitational at Sunrise Park on Saturday morning.
Schaumburg's top five runners were packed in at the end of the 3-mile race.
The methods led to familiar results as Van Vlierbergen took individual honors by more than 30 seconds for the second straight year. And Schaumburg continued its team dominance of the 14-team meet, with senior Caroline Kurdej leading its five scoring runners to finishes in the top 15 as it beat St. Charles North 47-78.
"This has always been a good meet for us and it gives us a lot of confidence before we go into one of the toughest conferences in the state," Schaumburg coach Courtney Smith said of the Mid-Suburban League. "There are some elite runners here and it was good for us to run with them."
One of the state's best, Van Vlierbergen, started running away from everyone in the first mile and finished in 17:30.4 to beat St. Charles North freshman Audrey Ernst (18:04). In the St. Charles East Leavey Invitational about a month ago, the victory margin for Van Vlierbergen over Ernst was nine seconds.
"I tried to just push it from the beginning," said Van Vlierbergen, who won the Bartlett race last year in 17:28.9. "It wasn't so much a strategy as I wanted to see if I could get my personal best here. I went out as fast as I could at the beginning and then tried my best at the end.
"Overall I thought it went really well. The first mile was really fast (5:25), but I felt like I died at the end, which I hoped I wouldn't."
Ernst led the way for the North Stars and finished ahead of Streamwood senior Gabby Ernst (18:29.8).
"I thought it was a great race and Lauren is just a really amazing runner," Ernst said. "She inspires me and all these girls out here do. She's just really great on the hills and I think she caught me there.
"It's really amazing and I'm so ecstatic to be able to race these girls. I feel so happy and it's so much fun to be able to race with them and do well."
Schaumburg showed plenty of togetherness even though it was running without Erin Falsey, who Smith said was resting to be at full strength for the championship-season push. Kurdej (18:47.8), sophomore Ellie O'Connell (18:51.7) and freshman Lauren Kubinski (18:53.6) finished 5-6-7 and sophomore Valarie Schackelton (19:20.1) and senior Ali Gutt (19:23.2) took 14th and 15th.
"They ran awesome today and they stuck with the game plan," Smith said.
"The cool thing is our one through five split was between 25 and 33 seconds," Kurdej said. "We're all fully capable of getting first through fifth. We're always happy whoever gets first because we all work really hard and we're all equally deserving."
Juarez, who led the Sabres to fifth place, was not completely happy with her third-place finish. But she was glad to be back for her first race of the season as she returned from an iron deficiency that also affected her last year.
Juarez finished nearly nine seconds ahead of fourth-place finisher Kelly Mechleib of Huntley.
"I was feeling really flat, like my legs were just dead, and I couldn't pick it up," Juarez said. "My plan was to stay with Audrey and Lauren and I just couldn't.
"But it's really exciting, especially knowing I took 49th in state (last year) and I was running with top all-staters. I definitely have big goals for this year."
Freshman Ally Suyak took 13th to aid St. Charles North's runner-up finish. Jacobs took third over Huntley on a sixth-runner tiebreaker.
Taking the final three spots in the individual top 10 were Crystal Lake South's Kiley Britten, Conant's Sydney Davis and Batavia's Daphne Kolody.