Hersey's Stanton battles gut-wrenching problem

Some runners get a funny feeling in their stomachs before a race. For Hersey junior Erik Stanton, the feeling would usually come in the middle of a race and he didn't find it very humorous.

All year long, Stanton has been battling a problem where his stomach would revolt mid-race and force him off the path while he purged his breakfast.

Stanton was usually able to continue, but the pit stops were causing him to finish behind runners he would normally beat.

"It is really tough," he said. "I can feel it right before it starts to happen but then there's no stopping it at that point. It just happens."

"I just fight through it," he continued. "When I actually do throw up, I slow down a lot, then I regain myself about 10 seconds later and then I can come back into the race.

"But usually I'm too far back to do anything. That's why I've been placing so far behind everyone in most of the races."

Stanton had tried several medications with little success until his latest prescription. The results have been dramatic.

Stanton had been running third on his team behind senior teammates Kevin Havel and Billy Wisser. In the past two weeks, he has placed third overall at the Mid-Suburban League championship and the Rolling Meadows regional.

However, Stanton might not be completely out of the woods. He said he almost threw up his last two races.

If Stanton can stay healthy, his emergence gives the Huskies perhaps the best 1-2-3 punch in Illinois.

"(Our) top three guys are awesome," Havel said. "I'd say we have one of the best, if not the best in the state, at least top-three wise.

"I'm really excited for these last few weeks. I'm really anxious to see what we can all do."

Unusual exit: When Wheeling failed to advance after finishing eighth at the Rolling Meadows regional, it was the first time since 1993 the Wildcats were not running in a sectional.

Coach Tom Polak acknowledged that fact but said he wouldn't blame his kids for snapping the string of successful Wheeling teams.

"That's a long streak," he said. "But I'm not going to dwell on it. The kids don't need to hear that. If they ran poorly I might throw that in their face.

"But they ran as hard as they could. They competed and they were up as far as they could. They have nothing to be ashamed of."

Polak took some solace in junior Eric Rodriguez qualifying individually for the Palatine sectional and said he would do everything he could to get Rodriguez to Peoria.

Despite the disappointing end to the Wildcats season, Polak said he had nothing but positive feelings.

"I'm proud of the entire group of guys," he said. "They did everything that I could have asked them to do. We ran much more aggressively today than we did at conference. That's all I can ask."

Grens' long run ends: A long season for Elk Grove came to a close at the Lake Park regional. The Grenadiers finished ninth and were able to beat out two other teams, something that seemed highly improbable at the beginning of the season.

In early September, Elk Grove's thin 6-man varsity roster was trimmed to five after one runner quit.

The defection made an already tight situation that much more difficult and forced the Grens into some races with only four runners, guaranteeing them last-place finish without a fifth scorer.

"It's been hard because when you get people quitting who have been here for the past two or three years and then quit their senior year, you kind of lose motivation," senior Tim Mucha said. "It takes awhile to get it back because you only have four or five guys to run.

"Especially being the captain, I've got to not show how it's stressing me out and I have to hide everything that is affecting me from everybody else."

Despite being faced with circumstances that made anything but a place at the bottom in every meet unlikely, the remaining Elk Grove runners leaned on each other and finished off the season as a team.

"We stick together," Mucha said. "We all hang out together; we go out and have fun. We look out for each other."