Girls cross country: Lakes' Schmitt has winning effort at Warren
There was some great pack running on display by the Fremd girls cross country team Saturday morning at the Blue Devil Invite in Gurnee.
The Vikings rolled to the championship of the 20-team meet by a 41-point margin, 60-101 over runnerup Lakes on the 2.95-mile course on the grounds of Warren's O'Plaine campus.
Lakes showed that it really has a great future as freshman Olivia Schmitt won the race in 17:20.39 to break the previous school record of 17:31 set by two-time all-stater Kortney Schardt, who is now running at Belmont University in Nashville.
Crystal Lake South (151 points) placed fifth in the huge field followed by rival squad Cary-Grove (160) in sixth, Grayslake Central (230) in seventh, Rolling Meadows (254) in eighth, Grayslake North (277) in ninth, and Antioch (294) in 10th.
After Schmitt, it was Fremd's Linda Verela (17:24.98) in second, and Cary-Grove freshman Allison Drage (17:27) in third as Schmitt and Drage both collapsed from exhaustion under the hot and humid running conditions immediately after the race.
"My main strategy is to stay behind the lead pack and finish them off in the end and that worked for me today," said Schmitt, who was the IESA state champ last year in the 1,600-meter run. "The team is looking really good, we went to Peoria and placed fourth last weekend so we've been pretty happy with our team."
Along with Verela, Fremd's push for the team crown was bolstered by a fantastic pack of four with Nupur Pokharkar in 14th, Rebecca Markham in 15th, Hannah Ban in 16th, and Fiona Jordan in 17th.
"She (Verela) is obviously our runner up front in the races, and she's our leader off the course as well and she was in the mix to win it with 300 meters to go," said Fremd coach Joe Marcin. "What's really bringing this team together is our pack and they have been using each race to stick together because we're only as good as our weakest link."
Lakes also put together a strong team effort behind Schmitt with Rae Dwyer (21st), Simone Lippman (22nd), Alyssa Stromsland (30th), and Megan Knuettel (31st) rounding out the Eagles' scoring.
"She (Schmitt) was a 2-time mile state champion in track, and it's outstanding that when you lose a leader like Kortney Schardt you are looking for someone to fill in the gaps," said Lakes coach Keith West. "And now we have six fantastic runners that are gelling as friends that support each other."
Crystal Lake South got a great, fourth-place finish from senior Caitlin Bruzzini while the Gators' pack also featured Mackenzie Aldridge in 26th, and Kayla Ehrenhaft in 33rd.
"She (Bruzzini) ran a great race, and they were all packed together with about 600 meters to go," said CLS coach Ken Greenfield. "I'm happy with fifth place, I really like how we're running as a team, and we put our top five in the top 50 today."
Cary-Grove got an 18th-place run from senior Sarah Caesar to go along with Drage's gut-wrenching finish.
"She (Drage) has learned every week, she goes in with a plan, and she executes that plan," said Cary-Grove coach Mark Anderson. "That was Sarah (Caesar's) second fastest time ever so she's running well and we're really happy with the way she's stepping up."
Graylake Central's No. 1 runner was Megan Girmscheid in eighth place while teammate Riley Achtemeier placed 23rd.
"We ran all of our fresh-soph kids down so our varsity was not at full strength," said Grayslake Central coach Jimmy Centella. "Megan (Girmscheid) has been so reliable as our No. 1 runner for at least the last three years and she's hoping to be all-state (top 25) this fall."
Antioch was led by sophomore Natalie Hill in 10th place followed closely by Grayslake North's Kelli Tosic in 11th, Mundelein's Andrea Cordova in 12th, and Wauconda's Morgan Thompson in 13th.
"From the second week on she (Hill) has looked sharp, she's getting to the front, and she's not backing down," said Antioch coach Chris Bailey. "We haven't put a full race together, but six of our seven girls ran p.r.'s today."
Carmel Catholic was led by Lauren Laughlin in 25th place while Clare Oehler-O'Sullivan placed 28th for Fremd. Elizabeth Clark paced Rolling Meadows in 29th while Molly Machala added a 32nd-place run for the Corsairs.