Girls cross country: Naperville North dominates field at West Aurora sectional
Naperville North coach Dan Iverson gave his team a pep talk as they prepared for the Class 3A West Aurora sectional Saturday in a rainstorm at Stuart Sports Complex in Aurora.
"I don't know if they needed it," Iverson said. "I think if you talk to them they would probably say they had a good time with it (the conditions)."
"It wasn't too bad," is how race-winner Judy Pendergast put it.
Pendergast wasn't too bad herself, taking first with a time of 16:50 despite falling in the middle of the race on the slippery, soggy course.
"She ran well, she ran a good, solid race," Iverson said. "She's been doing stuff like that most of the year. It was good to see."
Pendergast snapped a 4-meet winning streak for Geneva's McKenzie Altmayer, who finished second in the sectional by 28 seconds.
"I stayed conservative the first mile and gradually tried to cut the gap on her but that's a hard thing to do," said Altmayer, who finished the race stronger than she expected. "I was kind of shocked. I started to come in and thought, 'Ah shoot, should have probably gone (sprinted) sooner.'"
Pendergast had plenty of company at the front from her Naperville North teammates who showed why they are the defending state champs and ranked No. 1 again, winning with 40 points - 40 ahead of runner-up Batavia.
Sarah Schmitt was third, Emory Griffin seventh, Kate Shannon 13th and Claire Hamilton 16th.
"I didn't have any real concern with how we ran," Iverson said. "We moved well throughout the race. We held position when we needed to and we moved forward when we needed to. We'll take it."
Naperville North was followed by the five other state qualifiers: Batavia (80), Geneva (120), Neuqua Valley (144), Oswego (145) and Metea Valley (145).
Senior Dakota Roman is the veteran on a Batavia team filled with sophomores. Roman ran an 18:16 to take 15th.
"It's fun having a nice young team," Roman said. "It's really refreshing to see younger girls running on the varsity level do so well. They (Naperville North) are a really good team but from what I saw our splits were pretty good."
Emma Stephens is one of those Batavia sophomores and she finished fourth in 17:41. Sophomores Daphne Kolody (14th, 18:11), Marygrace Golden (19th, 18:23) and Anna Malay (28th, 18:40) made up Batavia's top five.
Batavia and Geneva finished 10th and 11th at last year's state meet and are both poised to move up next weekend in Peoria.
It can't be any worse of a day at Detweiller than Saturday brought.
"It was hard for everyone so I can't say it was just hard for myself," Roman said. "I think I did the best I could do with the conditions. I think the rain some teams find their strengths and some others find their weaknesses. I was happy with it. That's what cross country is all about it."
Geneva coach Bob Thomson also liked how the Vikings handled the conditions led by Altmayer in second and Emma Ehrhardt in 12th in 18:07.
Thomson said the girls ran with longer spikes in their shoes but the only other adjustments were mental.
"Just a mental focus," Thomson said. "We told them remember all the hot summers we ran. Think of that while you are out there. The teams that can mentally focus through this are the ones who are going to do better.
"I've never been in a meet when I've left my house in the rain, come home in the rain, setting up your tent in the rain, trying to warm up, stretch and run the race and it's probably not getting any better either. I've never been in a situation like this. You don't practice for this stuff either."
Like Batavia the Vikings are young with freshman Emily Belanger (26th, 18:39), sophomore Taryn Christy (36th, 18:56) and freshman Sophia McDonnell (44th, 19:07) making up Geneva's top five.
The race for the fourth and fifth spots couldn't have been tighter - 1 point separating three teams.
Sofia Medina (18th, 18:22), Corinna Pena (21st, 18:29) and Keara Ginell (24th, 18:34) placed in the top 25 for Neuqua Valley while Nicki Cast (8th, 17:57) and Terri Scarlett (20th, 18:25) did the same for Metea Valley.
Among the individual qualifiers were St. Charles North's Audrey Ernst (fifth, 17:46) and Madison Kaufmann (11th, 18:03), and Naperville Central's Alana Austin (25th, 18:34).