Hynes shines for Saints
Even the most experienced of runners admittedly don't always know what to expect heading into the first invitational of the high school cross country season.
Take St. Charles East's Lizzy Hynes, for example.
After a bruised knee curtailed her summer workout plans, Hynes, who earned all-state honors with a sixth-place individual effort last fall in Peoria, wasn't sure how she would respond during Saturday's St. Charles East/Jeff Leavey Invitational.
"Two days after state (track), I fell on my knee and suffered a bone contusion," said Hynes, "and it just escalated from there. I definitely didn't run as many miles as I wanted to. That's why I was kind of worried (today)."
No need to fret. Hynes claimed individual honors, covering the 3.0-mile Leroy Oakes Forest Preserve course in a time of 18:13.5 and distancing herself from second-place Alisa Praught (18:21).
"For my first mile, I wanted to run 6 minutes and I was exactly at 6:00," said the junior. "I think from there, I could tell I was doing pretty well."
After her opening mile, Hynes surprisingly found herself ahead of the pack.
"I took the lead pretty early," she said. "My plan was to stay in touch with the leaders and wait for them to kind of fall back. I took the initiative pretty quickly.
"I wasn't expecting a win today, but I really wanted to because I've never lost on my home course the past two years."
Fueled by five top-15 performances, defending meet champion York cruised to a 47-85 team triumph over second-place Barrington. Geneva (136), Bartlett (165) and St. Charles North (166) rounded out the top five in the team standings.
"We were hoping to break 80 points," said Lady Dukes coach Annette Schulte. "Their goal was to get under 80 and try to get all five (runners) in the top 20 -- and we got our top five in the top 15."
Sophomore Meghan Frigo paced York with a fourth-place time of 18:50, while Angela Pisani (sixth, 18:58), Allie Haling (10th, 19:11), Shreya Singh (12th, 19:14) and Megan Fry (15th, 19:22) adding counting scores.
"This is my personal best and the team's best," said Frigo. "We had such a great pack and we were all pushing each other."
"I told them before the race, 'If you have an awesome race, you might get five in the top 15 -- and they did it," said Schulte, who downplayed the significance of the season-opening meet. "Now, we've got to come back on Monday like nothing happened (over the weekend)."
Third-place Geneva, led by junior Sarah Cable's 16th-place effort, may have received its biggest emotional lift with its 15-point, 1-through-5 sweep during the frosh-soph race.
"That was a nice way to start the day," said Vikings coach Bob Thomson. "That really set the tone today. When we start blending that group together, it's going to work really nice for us. And I thought all seven of the varsity girls ran well today."
Junior Sam Salinas (seventh, 19:03) was the top finisher for fourth-place Bartlett.
"I was looking forward to this meet -- this is one of my favorite places," said Salinas. "I just felt awesome today."
Stephanie Strasser, who suffered a stress fracture in her toe last June, placed third for the fifth-place North Stars.
"I was really happy for my first start and not running all summer," said the sophomore. "I started running again three weeks ago so I'm really still training."
Ninth-place Batavia was led by sophomore Alexis Sampson (25th, 19:42).