Geneva chasing more all-state honors
While much of the focus this cross country season has been on the Geneva girls chasing their third straight state championship, there's also a number of area runners with excellent chances of earning individual all-state honors this weekend.
The 2009 state meet takes place Saturday morning at Detweiller park in Peoria, and the Geneva girls will be there to defend their state titles. So will elite runners like Geneva's Kelly Whitley, Kelly Shogren and Tess Ehrhardt, St. Charles North's Meghan Heuer and St. Charles East's Mallory Abel poised to finish in the top 25 to earn all-state.
Whitley has done that and then some the last two years, finishing second in state both times. She's coming off a 12th-place finish Saturday at the St. Charles East sectional.
After a third-place team finish last week at sectional, the Vikings won't go in as favorites, which might help take some pressure off the girls.
"The (sectional) competition was awesome," said Shogren, who led Geneva in seventh. "It was our first experience with a lot of competition and the course was so sloppy. Our team was a little disappointed, we hoped we could come out on top but I think we will be back (at state). Everyone is feeling a lot better. Kelly hasn't been feeling that great but she'll come back. We've all been doing a lot of training."
Shogren has come a long way this year after not running on the 2007 state title team and placing 98th last year as their No. 7 runner.
"It (Saturday's sectional) was one of my slowest times of the season but one of best race strategies of the season," Shogren said. "My goal was top 10."
Denise Hefferin's St. Charles East team finished one spot behind Geneva at sectional and also will run at Peoria.
Abel, a sophomore, is coming off a sixth-place finish at sectional and Hefferin said she could be top 15 at state. Abel placed 38th at state last year.
Other sectional finishers were: Grace Gordon (27th), Jessica Evans (28th), Sarah Hill (33rd), Holly Robertson (36th) and Colleen Earl (39th).
"We ran a really gutsy race," Hefferin said. "(Abel had) stomach flu, nerves, who knows. She knows she can run faster. We have one more week to prove it."
North Stars coach Shari Hayes is glad to see both Heuer and junior Erica Bauerbach qualify as individuals. Heuer took third in the sectional after she helped Geneva win last year's state title by placing 12th at state.
Heuer is certainly positioned for another all-state performance Saturday.
"It's been hard, three high schools in four years," Hayes said of all the moves to different schools for Heuer, while praising her ability to serve as a leader on this year's St. Charles North team.
"She's a pretty well adjusted young lady and I think she handled it well. Hopefully top 20, top 15 (at state). She's so fast in the last half-mile. She's such a great competitor that way and so quick. She's so fast and so good."
Boys race: Geneva also might have the best shot at all-state finishers in the Class 3A boys race, where returning all-stater Kevin McDowell finished eighth at sectionals last week, one spot and one second behind teammate Kevin Sparks.
"I think they are both all-state quality kids," Geneva coach Bob Thomson said. "I'm sure that's their goal to finish as all-staters."
Sparks seems more excited to see how well his team can run after they qualified for state by taking fifth at sectional.
"They ran rally smart, they moved up, just the way you should be in these meets," Sparks said of his teammates. "We just want to keep it going. The last couple years our team has been on the rise. We just want to make it to state and see what happens down there."
Thomson has enjoyed watching this group improve throughout the fall and would like to see them end top 10 or 12 at Peoria.
"They have worked really hard to get where they are," Thomson said. "I think it is a realistic goal to shoot for top 10. I think this (St. Charles East) is one of the tougher sectionals so fifth in this can translate into top 10, no worse than top 12."
St. Charles North finished one spot ahead of Geneva last week, using its better one through five scores to offset front-runners Sparks and McDowell.
Junior Ryan Senci led St. Charles North in 12th in 16:37, just ahead of Kyle Zankowski in 13th. Peter Johnson, Will Novorolsky and Brad Wheeler followed finishing 23rd through 37th.
The North Stars will try to add to their proud history of eighth, third, second, sixth and eighth in state the past five years.
"We can't control other teams," North Stars coach Steve Imig said. "We want to be the best we can possibly be. If we can be in the hunt to be top 10 or a little farther up is huge for us."
Imig is impressed with what this group has done.
"I'm really proud of these guys," Imig said. "We talked about it being their time. This group has never had to be the guys that did the job for us. They have seen other guys go through the program. But this year all year long they set the tone and they did what they had to do (at sectionals)."
In Class 2A, Kaneland and Marmion snared the final two spots at the Belvidere North sectional. The Cadets' Zach Young and the Knights' Trevor Holm led their respective teams in 12th and 13th place, respectively.