St. Charles East overcomes sickness to win regional

The St. Charles East girls cross country team wasn't in top form Saturday at the St. Charles North Class 3A regional.

The illness that forced the school to close for three days hit the Saints.

That didn't stop East from winning the team title with 36 points.

"We had some really big stepups for some girls who were on the mend," East coach Denise Hefferin said. "We had some girls who were sick last week, sick last night. We had some huge stepups from the girls who are normally our six, seven into the top five."

Sophomore Mallory Abel, who Hefferin said had a fever most of the week, finished third in 19:11. She appeared the be suffering after crossing the finish line, needing assistance to walk back to the team tent.

The Saints had four of the top-seven finishers. Colleen Earl was fifth (19:55.8), Jessica Evans was sixth (20:01.8) and Grace Gordon (20:03). Freshman Sarah Hill's 15th-place finish in 20:31.8 also counted toward the Saints' team score.

"(Abel) went out with the intention of winning," Hefferin said. "We race again the next two weeks so she can go out and prove that she is a top contender at state."

St. Charles North, which finished second with 56 points, had the top-two individual finishers. Meghan Heuer was first in 18:48.7, just ahead of Erica Bauerbach, who ran the course in 18:54.3. Also scoring for North was Audrey White (9th, 20:06.1), Lauren Muth (17th, 20:46.7) and Kali Vence (27th, 21:18.3).

"The course was pretty sloppy," Heuer said. "It wasn't exactly the most fun to run around today."

Streamwood's Amanda Patterson took fourth in 19:49.3, helping the Sabres advance as a team to next week's St. Charles East sectional, also held at Leroy Oakes Forest Preserve. The Sabres finished fourth as a team. Junior Maria Luna finished eighth in 20:04.2 for Streamwood.

"It feels really good going to sectionals," Patterson said. "We have a really strong team and we're going to keep it that way."

Also moving on as a team was Dundee-Crown (third) and South Elgin (fifth). Claira Himmel (10th, 20:14.8), Katie Gross (11th, 20:16.4) and Natalie Himmel (19th, 20:53.0) had top-20 finishes for the Chargers. Katie Goplerud (12th, 20:18.3) and Jordan Tuin (14th, 20:24.3) led the way for the Storm.

Advancing individually to the sectional were Jacobs' Susan Piotrowski (13th, 20:19.0), Sam Baran (18th, 20:47.8) and Emma Haughee (28th, 21:27.2) and Elgin/Larkin co-op's Kelly Patchett (20th, 20:53.6) and Meaghan Gard (23rd, 21:02.6).