No stopping St. Charles North at Leavey Invite

Kevin Harrington didn't find out until August he would be coaching the St. Charles North boys cross country team.

Who needs more notice?

The North Stars are off to a great start for their new coach, winning the Jeff Leavey Invitational at Leroy Oakes on Saturday.

Harrington took over at the last hour for Steve Imig who left for Texas. He credits his assistant coaches for making what could have been an awkward transition run much more smoothly.

"I'm having a great time, the kids are great," Harrington said. "It's been a great learning experience for me. I'm much more used to dealing with throwing and jumping and stuff (as a track coach), a little bit of basketball."

St. Charles North's 78 points edged Prairie Ridge (84). St. Ignatius, Wheaton North, Jacobs and Geneva rounded out the top six.

"We are putting together a pretty good team," Harrington said. "The kids are doing a great job. We threw it in their lap. we said if you are going to have a good season we are going to do it all together so it's going to be us, not me, not you. They have really bought into that. It's been a lot of fun."

Billy Clink led the charge Saturday by placing fourth in 15:28. Ryan Senci (seventh) and Declan Duggan (12th) followed, and Harrington was quite pleased with Zach Heuer's climb up to fourth on the team, 26th overall.

"He ran impressively today," Harrington said. "I wasn't sure if he would be 6 or 7 and he came up to fourth.

"We were relatively tight through two miles and started to break apart after that. Our top three ran real strong and I think four and five are going to do really well."

Senior Jason Dowell ran a 15:38 to place ninth and lead fourth-place Wheaton North. Nick Ellingson and Will Hennessy placed 10th and 11th for Jacobs who also got a personal best from Alex Johnson in 24th (16:05).

"That was my best race yet," Johnson said. "Everybody did really well."

Senior Billy Kostiewicz, in his first year out for cross country, finished as Geneva's top runner. He placed 18th in 15:55.

Kostiewicz said he played on basketball and baseball 'B' teams his first two years at Geneva. Last year he didn't go out for a sport and "felt lazy sitting around the house." So he went out for track in the spring and now cross country - and he finished first for the Vikings.

"I went out a little too fast," Kostiewicz said. "The adrenaline in the first race I just shot out of there. I was able to hang on. I was pretty happy."

So was Batavia coach Mike DiDomenico with his top three runners - Matt Lash (22nd), Mike Redmond (23rd) and Chris Spadafora (28th) - finishing within 10 seconds of each other.

"That's a good start," DiDomenico said. "It's a fun meet, it kicks off the season. I thought our kids did a nice job, really performed well. We have some new faces. We're excited."

Those new faces speak to the optimism DiDomenico has about his program.

"Our kids are working hard, we're excited for them, good things are happening," DiDomenico said. "We have a good middle school cross country program now that's helping us. Our numbers are amazing. pushing 50 kids, we've never had that. Because of that we can see competition within the ranks and it's helping our team."

Host St. Charles East finished 11th led by seniors Mike Rykoskey (25th) and Steven Decker (32nd).