Fairleigh leads C-G to 2nd at Wauconda
The Stevenson boys cross country team was pretty impressive Saturday morning at the 29-team Wauconda Invitational.
While it was Oak Park-River Forest that took home the first-place trophy on the 3-mile Lakewood Forest Preserve course by a comfortable 56-87 margin over runner-up Cary-Grove, the Patriots did put together a very solid effort to place third with 132 points.
Cary-Grove two-time state qualifier Phil Fairleigh was the individual champion with a winning time of 15 minutes, 28 seconds. He easily held off Oak Park's Malachy Schrobilgen by six seconds for first place.
Senior Nate Kolman led Stevenson's surge with a seventh-place time of 16:07, while teammate Kevin Wood added an 11th-place run for the Patriots. Konner Kruse turned in a 27th-place effort, while teammate Adam Pauley's 41s-place run helped carry the Pats to third in the team standings.
"I didn't go out as fast as I wanted to, but overall I was pretty happy with how I ran today," said Kolman. "I just sat behind whoever was leading instead of taking it myself, but it was a PR for me on this course."
Fairleigh set the pace from the early stages of the race and he never looked back in winning under warm running conditions.
Matt Klein added a 10th-place finish for the Trojans, while teammates Eddy Gibbons and Ryan Gustafson placed 14th and 28th, respectively.
"It's early in the season so I was just relaxing for the first couple of miles," Fairleigh said. "In the last mile I took off and did what I had to do to win and I am really happy with the team performance today."
Besides the Patriots' top four, Alex Goldberg added a 49th-place run to round out Stevenson's top five.
"They're really working hard in practice and the top four were pretty closely knit for the first mile today," said Stevenson coach Scott Somers. "Our top two guys (Kolman and Wood) have been looking great all season, they had an incredible summer, and they're really showing a lot of leadership to our young guys."
After losing at least four key runners to graduation, including state qualifier Karsen Green, Warren had a solid 11th-place showing behind Kevin Vollrath (39th) and Matt Message (51st). Both runners ran PRs.
The Blue Devils raced without No. 1 runner Danny Kleine, who was taking the ACT.
"We ran really well and they're getting more competitive," Warren assistant coach Jason Jecmon said.
Led by Blake Franson's 20th-place finish, Lakes finished 12th with 334 points. Junior Juan Carrera was Round Lake's top runner in 18th place, while Ryan Mamerow led Grant in 23rd.
Andrew Thompson paced Vernon Hills' effort in 30th place, followed by Graylake North's Matt Kendzior in 32nd, Grayslake Central's Ryan Seiffert in 43rd and Lakes' Danny McGrath in 48th.
"Mamerow looked good even though he got a bad jump off the gun," said Grant coach Jeff Durlak. "He was about 60th at the mile and he had to do quite a bit of work to get back up there in the last two miles."