Naperville North wins competitive SCE sectional
The conditions weren't pretty at the Class 3A St. Charles East sectional Saturday on the mud-covered LeRoy Oakes course, but the results sure were for champion Naperville North.
"It's cross country." Huskies coach David Racey said. "We run well in the mud. No complaints ever about the courses."
The Huskies have been in quite a battle the last three weeks with two conference foes. Wheaton Warrenville South won the DuPage Valley meet two weeks ago, Wheaton North took the regional last week and Saturday it was the Huskies' turn.
Naperville North won the sectional with 85 points and will be joined at state next week in Peoria by the Tigers (92), Falcons (104), St. Charles North (118) and Geneva (137).
"Now it's rotated again," Racey said. "Really good competition. The better the competition the better for us. It forces us to be better."
Naperville North put the first and third runners into the chute, senior Tyler Jermann winning the race in 15:50 and senior Bob Guthrie in third.
Racey credited runner-up Anthony Manfrin from Dundee-Crown with helping Jermann run better.
"It was really great for Tyler because he hasn't been pushed all season," Racey said. "It was great to have someone sitting on him for two, two-and-a-quarter, two-and-a-half miles. "That will be great practice for him next week to be in that situation.
"And Bob just ran outstanding. He's improved a lot each week so we just have to do that one more week."
Racey said sophomores Nick Drendel and Karsten Jurkiewicz "stepped up" Saturday.
Wheaton Warrenville South had the best pack of the day with Matthew Mazzoni, Keenan Havey, Aaron Peck, Ryan Frederickson and Nicholas Casa finishing 14th, 17th, 19th, 20th and 22nd, just 15.2 seconds apart.
The Waterman brothers led Wheaton North, James finishing fourth and Jake in fifth in 16:11. Senior Daniel Woldesilassie placed 16th.
Entering the race, St. Charles North coach Steve Imig thought his team was one of five with a chance to win. "The bottom line for all teams is to punch their ticket to the state meet," Imig said. "We feel good we are moving on. We had a very good day. It's a well-balanced sectional. We felt coming in their realistically were five team sin the hunt and it was going to be fun to see how it shook out.
Junior Ryan Senci ran his best race of the year, leading the North Stars in 12th in 16:37, just ahead of Kyle Zankowski in 13th.
"Ryan had a huge day," Imig said. "He ran with Kyle for first time all year."
The North Stars have had close splits this year, and Peter Johnson, Will Novorolsky and Brad Wheeler made sure the team was Peoria bound finishing 23rd through 37th.
"They did the job," said Imig, whose team now continues the North Stars tradition that has seen them finish eighth, third, second, sixth and eighth in state the past five years.
Geneva also is making a return trip to state, thanks to seniors Kevin Sparks (seventh) and Kevin McDowell (eighth) at the front and the group of Ryan Ahern, Justin Rodriguez, Connor Bartel and Peter Archibald in 39th, 40th, 43rd and 46th.
"Early in the season nobody would have picked us to get downstate," Geneva coach Bob Thomson said. "They just worked hard all year, moving up, moving up. They are a nice bonding unit now, very supportive of each other, very friendly cohesive group of hard-working kids."
Sparks and McDowell went out with the leaders and tried to see where they stood with some of the best runners in the state.
"We knew it was going to be a close race up front," Sparks said. "Kevin and I went out and saw what we could do with those guys. It was tough. We hung in there and I'm happy."
Dundee-Crown's Manfrin (second) and Nathan Prom (11th) will run at state after the Chargers came up one spot short of qualifying as a team in sixth place, 58 points back of Geneva.
"We knew Tyler (Jermann) was one of the best runners in the state," Manfrin said of finishing six second behind the champion. "My coach said just stay right around him.
"The whole goal for today was the team and see if we could make it out. It's disappointing but we've been getting better every week. We return 12 of 15 next year so we are pretty strong with the juniors. We are a little disappointed we didn't make it but we've come a long way so we're happy with that."
Other local finishers included West Aurora (eighth), West Chicago (10th), Batavia (11th) and St. Charles East (16th).
The other individual state qualifiers were Naperville Central senior Mitch Gilbert (sixth, 16:17.5), West Chicago junior Gunnar Sterne (10th, 16:31.4), Benet senior Jerry Olp (11th, 16:36.2) and Waubonsie Valley junior David Grober (16th, 16:39.9).