Out of nowhere, Pealor shatters record
Naperville Central's Shelby Pealor has flown under the radar most of the season in girls cross country, enjoying immense success in relative anonymity.
That is until Saturday when the Redhawks junior soared to the championship at the Class 3A East Aurora regional at Oakhurst Forest Preserve in Aurora. Pealor won in a course-record 17 minutes, 24.6 seconds, shattering the previous record by 19 seconds on the fast 2.98-mile course. It was her first invitational victory ever.
"There was some pressure on me last week and I didn't do as good. There was no pressure on me today and I actually had fun," said Pealor, who took the lead shortly after the mile mark and never looked back. "I surprised myself today."
Fourth-ranked Naperville North edged Wheaton-Warrenville South for the team title 59-66. The top five teams overall advanced to next week's grueling Schaumburg sectional, which will feature nine of the top 11 teams in state. The Huskies placed five runners in the top 16 with an impressive top-five split of 20 seconds.
"We have a nice emerging pack that we'll have to rely on significantly next week," said Huskies coach Dan Iverson. "We had to move a lot because we were trapped pretty far back. We didn't get out real fast. It took us awhile to move into position, but our girls were really good about it."
Alicia Zimmerman, Elise Anderson and Anne Wanner, finished ninth, 10th and eleventh, respectively, to pace the fifth-ranked Tigers. Sarah Picken, in her first varsity race ever, finished 14th overall.
"We're coming along at the right time, gaining momentum and we'll be ready for next week," said Tigers coach Rob Harvey.
Downers Grove South finished third overall with 98 points to advance behind its impressive 1-2 punch of Nicole Thate and Grace Magliola, who finished third and fifth, respectively.
Thate finished two seconds behind Benet sophomore McKinzie Schulz, who ran a controlled race before unleashing her powerful kick to finish in 17 minutes, 36.9 seconds.
"I just tried to draft off of anyone I could and then out-sprint them in the end," Schulz said.
Benet finished fourth overall with 100 points, 15 points ahead of final team qualifier Downers Grove North. Benet coach Scott Brooks realizes he will need close to perfection to survive next week's sectional but fortunately for him, that's exactly what his team gave him at regionals.
"Every single team that gets out of that sectional will have to run an unbelievable race," said Brooks, praising the strong effort of his entire top seven. "This is the race I've been waiting for us to run all year long."
Pealor and teammate Brittany Fiske qualified individually for next week's sectional, along with West Aurora's Charlotte Smith, East Aurora's Jeannette Moya and Waubonsie Valley's Toni Ogundare, who finished fifth overall.
-- Dennis Van Milligen
Class 3A Lake Park regional: Lindsey Flannagan found her pace early. The junior got out front and led in the pack in 17:35 to win the Class 3A regional on her Lake Park home course.
"It was a good (race)," Flannagan said. "I just tried to do what I did last week and push the second mile. I think it worked pretty well. (My team) did really well. We all finished close together. That's all you can ask for."
Her team's effort produced 64 points to finish second in the regional. In eighth Ashley Prochazka also ran with Trisha Ehrhardt, Juliet Vogel, Yazmin Gutierrez and Becky Kohles all finishing top 25.
"We qualified, we ran well and we're on to next week," said Lancers coach Harvey Braus. "We'll see what happens then. In order for us to get out of the sectional, we'll have to run better and improve. It's going to be a tough sectional. Hopefully, we'll be 100 percent ready to go."
-- Bill Swick
Class 3A St. Charles East regional: Running on its "home away from home" course, Geneva put on quite a show at LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve in St. Charles.
Relying on an all-freshman starting seven, the Vikings knocked off DuPage Valley Conference champion Wheaton North and the rest of the 11-team field while capturing the regional title.
Kelly Whitley led the Vikings to their second regional crown in four years, covering the 3-mile course in a time of 17:36.4.
Geneva edged Wheaton North 40-54 for team honors.
Sophomore Kelsey Tharnstrom, who won the DVC individual title one week earlier, paced runner-up Wheaton North with a fourth-place showing.
"I think we know we should have done better," said Tharnstrom, who was joined in the top 10 by teammates Jaime Orewiler and Alexa Reinecke.
"We kind of came out here and might have rested on the fact that we thought we were going to win. We're just going to try and forget about it, work hard and move on to next week."
Sophomore Stephanie Strasser placed third for fourth-place St. Charles North (145), while Glenbard East (146) secured the fifth and final team sectional berth. The Rams were paced by senior Samantha Comerci.
Individual qualifiers from non-qualifying teams were Addison Trail's Mayra Sanchez, Bartlett's Sam Salinas, Batavia's Alexis Sampson, and Glenbard West's Rachel Folan and Beth Phillips.
-- Craig Brueske
Class 2A Glenbard South regional: As great as it is to have front-runners, titles often are determined by which team has the best depth.
At Saturday's regional in Glen Ellyn, Wheaton Academy's Sarah Daly and Becca Long finished 1-2 on the 3.05-mile course at Village Green. But in the end it was St. Francis that claimed the team title after the Spartans' and Warriors' top five runners left the squads tied for first at 31 points apiece.
It was St. Francis' Meg McKenna, battling a cold, who came across in 18th place overall who proved to be the difference as she finished ahead of Wheaton Academy's sixth runner to give the crown to Spartans coach Scott Nelson.
"A lot of schools focus on having five runners do well, but six can count," Nelson said. "We're happy to be on top by the sixth runner. I knew it would be close."
Freshman Alysa Robinson took third for the Spartans in 19:51, with junior Courtney Trunk just two seconds behind in fourth and Kelly McShea placing fifth.
"It's a team effort and it helps that we push each other," Robinson said.
Trunk seconded that notion, saying: "We're a young team, but we have such a tight pack and we push each other. I felt good at the end, but it helped to have Aly right there."
For Daly, Saturday was special after a stress fracture kept her out of the Warriors' top seven last fall.
"It's really sweet," she said. "I'm excited to be back."
Timothy Christian (third, 93 points), Glenbard South (fourth, 106) and Regina Dominican (fifth, 118) claimed the final three team berths to next week's Class 2A sectional in Skokie. Driscoll's Vanessa Bain was eighth overall and advances individually to the sectional.
For Timothy Christian, Katie Dirkse and Leah Bosman led the way in 14th and 15th place, respectively, while the Raiders were paced by Sarah Kearney and Kim Gaspar in 16th and 17th.
"That's a fun race. That's the way it needs to be," Wheaton Academy coach Bill Bickhart said of the tight race, before embracing and congratulating Nelson. "It was great competition."
-- Stan Goff
Boys cross country
Class AA East Aurora regional: Fifth-ranked Naperville North ran away with the team championship, scoring 33 points to second-place Waubonsie Valley's 67. Senior Kyle Gibson won in 14 minutes, 24.2 seconds, putting last week's disappointing DuPage Valley Conference loss to Chase Kadlec and fellow Wheaton North Falcons behind him.
"This year was, by far, my best performance," said Gibson, who admitted the DVC loss motivated his team to come back strong this week. "Losing DVC might've been the best thing to happen to us."
Waubonsie Valley enjoyed its first race at close to full strength, having endured a season of asthma problems and Achilles' injuries among its top runners. Mark Schumacher paced the Warriors with his fourth-place finish.
"We started out really good," Schumacher said as the Warriors were neck-and-neck with the Huskies at the mile mark. Both teams had four runners in the top 10. "With the cooler weather we perform better."
Naperville Central's 1-2 punch of Evan Thayer and Steve Couch finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in helping the Redhawks finish third overall.
"We were expecting it to go out fast and it did," Thayer said of his 4:45 first mile split.
Benet finished fourth with 137 points, with Downers Grove South securing the final team spot. Individually, Downers Grove North's Michael Lifson and Aaron Silver, Marmion's Josh Stein and TJ Hefferman and Wheaton-Warrenville South's Peter Casa qualified to next week's Schaumburg sectional.
-- Dennis Van Milligen
Class 3A Lake Park regional: Host Lake Park (89) qualified for next week's sectional as a team.
Sophomore Luke Nally ran a 15:40 to finish 12th and lead the Lancers. However, Lake Park coach Lance Murphy felt his team was off.
"We ran our worst race of the year and got fourth," Murphy said. "We're happy we got out. Next week we have to be our best because it's going to be a brutal sectional."
-- Bill Swick
Class 3A St. Charles East regional: The conservative approach worked just fine for Wheaton North.
Running without one of their top runners, the Falcons took care of business while capturing the Class 3A St. Charles East regional title at LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve.
Led by seniors Collin Christensen, Chase Kadlec and Graham Farnsworth, the Falcons scored 40 points while overtaking second-place Geneva (47) and third-place St. Charles North (55).
"Geneva and St. Charles North had us on the ropes with a mile to go and our kids moved up and really did a nice job," said Falcons coach Nate Roe, whose team took regional honors for the third time in four years. "We knew it would be a challenge."
Justin Soderlund, who helped lead Wheaton North to the DuPage Valley Conference title last week, was held out of the lineup.
"It was just precautionary," Roe said. "He had some cramping last week. We knew this was the week we could be conservative. Advancing is the ultimate goal and next week we'll have everyone ready to go.
"We talked about trying to do our best and maybe winning it, but we tried to do it as efficiently as possible without having to put the hammer down because next week we know that we're going to have to do that."
Batavia (115) and Glenbard East (157) secured the fourth and fifth team berths. Brian Peters finished 11th for the Rams.
Glenbard West's Robert Cooper, Glenbard North's Brett Lustgarten and Mike Matuszak, and Bartlett's Aaric Wilson advanced from non-qualifying teams.
-- Craig Brueske
Class 2A Glenbard South regional: A smiling St. Francis coach Scott Nelson was wondering out load if he should run out and buy a lottery ticket Saturday afternoon.
The way Nelson saw things, Saturday surely was his lucky day. His boys had just run a great race in edging second-place Northridge Prep by a single point, 60-61, and also barely holding off third-place Wheaton Academy (63 points) to take top honors at the Class 2A Glenbard South regional at Village Green in Glen Ellyn. Less than half an hour earlier Nelson's girls squad also claimed a championship regional plaque, with the Spartans girls beating Wheaton Academy by a sixth-runner tiebreaker.
"I haven't been in a regional like this in years," Nelson said. "Maybe I should run out and buy a lottery ticket. That was a hard-fought one. We'll take it."
The Spartans boys were powered by Garrett McKnight's winning time of 16:05 and Phil Diamond's fifth-place effort, but Nelson was quick to point out the strong finishes by all seven runners. Not only did the pack of Ben Stefely, Joe Giamberdino and Dillion Murray come through the chute 17-19, but St. Francis' sixth and seventh runners -- seniors Chris Sullivan and Kyle McKenna -- passed a few runners down the stretch and therefore enabled the team to squeak out the tight victory.
"It does feel good to win (individually), but I'm more of a team guy," said McKnight, who failed to advance out of last year's rugged Class AA regional at Wheaton North. "Now we'll go train and try to run even better next week."
Glenbard South was fourth with 89 points and Montini was fifth at 122 to join the top three teams in moving on to next Saturday morning's sectional at Niles West.
Mark Phillips, Mike DeRenzo and Peter Heidlauf each finished in the top 10 for Wheaton Academy, while Montini's Andrew Larsen took fourth and Glenbard South's Ben Miller was ninth.
-- Stan Goff