Wheaton Academy's Pearson affirms switch with win
Duty called. Annika Pearson answered.
A captain on Wheaton Academy's girls soccer team until two months ago, on Tuesday at Westmont the track convert continued progress toward what she'll do at the Naval Academy - just plain run.
A family legacy and a desire to serve her country led the Warriors senior to an Annapolis summer seminar that included a timed mile.
"I guess I caught the cross country coach's eye," said Pearson, a four-year cross country runner who helped the Warriors - including sophomore sister, Gretchen - reach the Class 2A meet last fall.
Annika felt compelled to leave soccer, which she'd played since kindergarten.
"A soccer body is different from a cross country body and I needed to prepare for my future even if that meant sacrificing what I love," said the Glen Ellyn resident.
The cold mist at Westmont's coed tri-meet with Elmwood Park hardly resembled her spring break in Hawaii, but in Pearson's first outdoor track meet she ran a personal-best 800-meter split on a winning 3,200-meter relay and won the open 1,600 in 6 minutes, 13 seconds.
"I guess I would call myself a runner," she said. "I think running's what I'll do for the rest of my life. I won't be playing soccer when I'm 50, but I hope I'm running when I'm 50."
Elmwood Park didn't bring its girls team, which left Westmont beating Wheaton Academy 58 points to 56 despite good performances from Warriors Cassidy Kraft, Lauren Thomas and freshman sprinter Karen Best, baring the buff arms of a gymnast because, well, she was a gymnast.
Along with Westmont thrower Sarah Bayne plus Tori Martinez and Sydney Pardy, who both ran on two winning relays and won an individual event, the Sentinels boasted state-caliber hurdler-sprinter Annie Carlson.
The junior took Class 1A all-state in two events last spring and on Tuesday ran on the winning 400 relay and won the 400 dash and the 100 hurdles, in a sharp 16-flat.
Elmwood Park's boys beat Westmont 87-58 with Wheaton Academy's top athletes out this week. The Sentinels' double winners included thrower Sam Soltwisch, strong distance runner Nick Dea and senior Quin Brown.
Brown won his 100-meter dash debut in 11.1 seconds, ran a 53-second split anchoring the 1,600 relay, and won the open 400 in 54.7 seconds.
"When (Westmont boys coach Rainy Kaplan) threw me in the 400 last year I gave her a response, saying, 'I cannot do this, it's very hard, I cannot handle it,'" said the 6-foot-1, 192-pound Brown, who will play football for Matt Foster at College of DuPage.
"And what she told me I'll never forget. She said: 'I would never throw you in something that I know you can't succeed in.'"