Huntley's Smith wins Flyin' Hawk title

Huntley senior Keagan Smith won the Bartlett Flyin' Hawk Invite Saturday at Sunrise Park, though not without taking a few looks over his shoulder at Danny Peterson.

The Fremd junior made Smith work, and Huntley's star runner did just that, taking first in 15:14 to Peterson's 15:26.

"He was pushing me from behind the whole time," Smith said. "I wasn't sure where he was at a couple times, I had to take a quick check at the flags. He ran a great race, was closer than I expected for sure."

Smith, who led from start to finish, took second in this invitational last year. He also won the Lake Park invite earlier this season.

"I was pretty happy with it (my race)," Smith said. "I took off 20 seconds from last year, you can never be disappointed with that.

I feel this year I'm a lot stronger at this point and a lot more in shape. Even though I was by myself I was able to push myself more than I expected."

Smith led a Huntley parade to the finish line, the Red Raiders placing three in the top four. Teammates Mike Grocholski and Seth Conroy finished third and fourth in 15:49 and 15:54, respectively.

Freshman Jadon Conroy in 20th and junior Matt Kapolnek in 24th rounded out Huntley's top five.

Huntley totaled 52 points to win the 11-team invitational over its nearest competitors Fremd (62), Jacobs (81), St. Charles North (128) and Batavia (131).

"This is another step toward our season (goals)," Smith said. "We tried some new team things. We wanted to pack it up more. Everyone ran great today."

Despite missing its No. 2 runner, Fremd nearly won the meet. Peterson led the way, taking 44 seconds off his time on this course last year.

"Keagan Smith makes it look easy, doesn't he?" Fremd coach Darius Sanchez said. "But we wanted to close in on him today, see what we could do. I think you saw two of the better runners in the area today."

Peterson is having a great fall, running a 14:51 to take 10th at Peoria's First to the Finish meet.

"Once you get under the 15-minute barrier that's a serious time," Sanchez said. ""He (Peterson) was not on anyone's radar last year, then had a great track season. Not too many people knew about him but they know about him now. He's been getting better and better every single meet. We're really looking forward to the sectional meet."

Joseph Smaga also finished in the top 10 for Fremd in ninth (16:10).

"As a pack they stepped up and responded," Sanchez said. "Our pack is getting tighter and closing in on our No. 1. We have a lot of guys improving."

Jacobs senior Kyle Ross and junior Garrett Brenizer finished side by side, taking fifth and sixth in 16:01.2 and 16:01.6.

Brenizer said the key to his race was a strong start.

"I had a very good start in the top four," Brenizer said. "I went out fast, that was a good position. Mentally that just starts me off on the right foot. Sometimes when you get off to a bad start the gaps start to form and you lose focus. That didn't happen today."

Struggling on the same course in past years made Saturday's race that much more pleasing to Brenizer.

"I overcame a little mental barrier because in the past I didn't have good races here," Brenizer said. "That changed today. I was very happy with that."

Jacobs also liked the third-place team finish.

"Starting out (this year) we had a lot of gaps between our top runners and today the gaps closed quite a little bit," Brenizer said. "That's a good step forward to the end of the season. We're starting to get our act together. We feed off each other, working together when we are tired."

Joey Rangle ran a 16:15 to take 11th and sophomore Bo Ruttens was 19th in 16:34 to lead the North Stars, whose only goal was to have all seven of its runners pack up for the first mile. They did just that with all seven runners within five seconds at the mile.

"We did exactly what we wanted them to do," North Stars coach Kevin Harrington said. "He (Rangle) was kind of kicking himself (from last week) so he had something in his attitude today that helped him. He needs to be up there. We're working on how do we stick our nose in the business at conference or regionals. We have to learn how to do that."

The North Stars finished 21st at Peoria last week and return home next week to host their annual invite.

"There are developmental meets, there are important meets and there are critical meets," Harrington said. "This is just developmental. We love being here but it is the meet after Detweiller and the meet before ours so it's a meet we have to get in and learn something. We learned we can be together for a mile and do what they can from there."

Senior Justin Isla led host Bartlett in ninth in 16:05, just behind West Chicago's Danny McComb.

Shane Knanishu paced Batavia in 18th.