Fremd packs away a victory at Warren Blue Devil Invitational
The Fremd boys cross country team was a dominant force Saturday morning at the Warren Blue Devil Invitational in Gurnee.
The Vikings had all seven of their runners finish in the top 28 in the 22-team meet while rolling to the championship with 47 points.
Even without top runner Phil Fairleigh competing, Cary-Grove took runner-up honors with 114 points while the host Blue Devils placed third with 121 points on their familiar 3-mile course.
Crystal Lake South took home fourth place with 140 points while Rolling Meadows slipped past Grayslake Central by a 251-262 margin for seventh place.
Rolling Meadows did have the individual champion in the race with Angelos Karkalis winning in 15:25.99.
Cary-Grove's duo of Eddy Gibbons and Matt Klein placed 2-3 in the meet while junior Juan Carrera led Round Lake in fifth place.
Carrera finished in a near dead heat with Fremd sixth-place finisher Spiros Angelakos while Aaron Ferst placed seventh for the Vikings.
"I felt great, and it was a great race at the end," Carrera said. "It was a fast pace, but the weather was perfect today, especially in the woods."
Dan Kleine led Warren's surge in eighth place to nip Cary-Grove's Ryan Gustafson in ninth.
But the pack running of Fremd was not to be denied Saturday as the trio of Andrew Mack, Daniel Ricketts, and Yutaro Okuda placed 12-14 to help carry the Vikes to the crown. Phillip Cano added a 17th-place run for Fremd with teammate Matt Smage placing 28th.
"They looked great, we've really been preaching the pack mentality, and guys are feeding off each other," said Fremd coach Mike Bruce. "Spiros Angelakos set a course record on our home course the other day and our three captains stepped up today to really lead our pack."
Crystal Lake South was led by Brian Roesslein's 16th-place effort while Kevin Vollrath was Warren's No. 2-runner in 19th place.
John Ryan added a 20th-place finish for the Gators to edge Warren's Matt Message in 21st and Cary-Grove's Jason Maxwell in 22nd.
Grayslake North was led by Matt Kendzior in 27th place while Ryan Seiffert was Grayslake Central's top runner in 30th. Kyle Rehberg added a 33rd-place finish for the Rams.
Buffalo Grove did field a varsity team for the meet, but the Bison chose to run some of their top runners down in the frosh-soph meet Saturday.
"Our top two guys ran in the fresh-soph race today, but I was very impressed by the guys who ran in the varsity race," said Buffalo Grove coach Jamie Klotz. "They came out and competed well, and we were able to achieve our goals in terms of training too."
Carrera is hoping to make the Class 2A state meet for the Panthers this November, and based on Saturday's performance he is right on schedule to reach that goal.
"I think he (Carrera) looked great and in the past couple of races he's faded after the second mile, but today he was able to finish it off strong," said Round Lake coach Kevin Brady, whose team only used five runners. "We've got a small team here today, but they all ran under 20 minutes and as a team we did really well."
Martin Mena led Mundelein's pack in 34th place while CLS teammates Brian Keogh and Alex Ortega placed 35th and 36th respectively. Warren's Xavier Suarez nipped CLS's Ryan Masey by fractions of a second for 38th place.