Lake Zurich earns a trip to state

The Class 3A Schaumburg sectional turned out to be a much bigger adventure than the Lake Zurich boys cross country team had expected Saturday morning at Busse Woods.

But "all's well that ends well" turned out to be the case for the Bears on the sloppy 3-mile course.

Lake Zurich finished in a fifth-place 174-174 tie with the host Saxons - and both teams earned trips to the 2009 state meet next Saturday in Peoria.

Palatine easily won the battle for first place in the powerful 20-team meet by a 64-97 margin over runner-up Prospect.

Cary-Grove (124 points) cruised to third place behind Phil Fairleigh's first-place time of 15:47.

But the race for the final two team berths to Detweiller Park really went down to the wire, with only 2 points separating the squads in fourth through seventh place.

Fremd took home fourth place with 173 points to nip both Lake Zurich and Schaumburg with 174 points each. The no tie-breaker rule meant that six teams from the sectional would be going downstate.

That also meant that seventh-place Barrington with 175 points will be staying home next weekend despite finishing just 1 point behind the Bears and Saxons in the very competitive meet.

The final results might not have even been so close had Lake Zurch's No. 1-runner, senior Andrew Morrison, not taken a fall early in the race.

But Morrison and the Bears were able to advance to state by the narrowest of margins.

Senior Paul Geimer was Lake Zurich's top runner in 26th place, followed by Morrison in 37th, sophomore Jon Smith in 39th and junior Ryan Moncrieff in 41st.

"I had no idea it was so close, but we didn't have the front-runner like we usually do so we all had to step up," Geimer said. "He (Morrison) fell about a half a mile into the race and then he might have been mentally out of the race. He said that cost him five or six seconds."

After the Bears placed 13th in the state last fall, Lake Zurich coach J.B. Hanson was grateful that his team was able to return to Peoria considering how close the final results were.

"It's a blessing that we were at the positive end of it, but I feel bad for Barrington because they had a great year," Hanson said. "The team ran well and Paul (Geimer) ran a nice race as our No. 1 runner. It happens every year at this sectional where there are a lot of teams who can make it (to state), but unfortunately only five can."

Round Lake junior Juan Carrera reached his long-time goal. Carrera (16:10) had an outstanding 10th-place finish to earn the fourth of seven individual at-large berths to the state meet.

Like Morrison, Carrera's race was not a smooth one as he momentarily lost a show in the first mile of the race before making a huge recovery to finish with a top-10 medal on the damp course.

"After I lost my shoe I thought I was out, but at the beginning of the second mile I heard someone yell you're 38th and I knew that wasn't good enough for state," Carrera said. "So I started surging to get back in the pack and I threw it all out there to catch up."

Carrera really made Round Lake coach Kevin Brady happy. Carrera will be the Panthers' first runner to reach the state meet since Brady took over as coach in 2000.

"I saw him at the mile and he was in the front pack like we talked about all week," Brady said. "But to see him come back and make up all of the ground he did I thought it was an awesome race."

Libertyville senior Mitch Neubauer made a pretty good run at an individual berth to the state meet, but he fell just a bit short of the cutoff with an 18th-place finish. The Wildcats placed 15th with 360 points.

"We knew Mitch had a shot (at state), and most years a top 20-finish gets out," said Libertyville coach Mark Buesing. "He ran a smart first mile and then a hard second mile. But the times were close to 45 seconds slow because of the course conditions."

Stevenson junior Kevin Wood also had a very solid performance with a 20th-place finish as an individual sectional qualifier. Senior Danny Kleine led 12th-place Warren with a 30th-place run. Freshman Martin Martinez placed 43rd for the Blue Devils, while Stevenson senior Nathan Kolman placed 48th.

Grant junior Ryan Mamerow placed 51st to edge Lake Zurich juniors Victor Delatorre (53rd) and Alex Brend (54th).