Mundelein's Perreault edges Warren's Tully for fourth

Rain wreaked havoc on the 3-mile Lakewood Forest Preserve course Saturday at the Wauconda Invitational.

But in spite of the treacherous running conditions, area girls cross country runners navigated the course very well. Crystal Lake Central held off runner-up Huntley by a 48-90 margin to capture the championship of the 24-team meet.

The muddy conditions saw DuPage County entry Glenbard East run away from fourth-place Cary-Grove (178 points), fifth-place Grayslake Central (210), sixth-place Stevenson (216) and seventh-place Mundelein (218).

The individual run for the finish line featured Crystal Lake South's Marianne Collard (18:38) edging Crystal Lake Central's Kelly McNeely by less than two seconds for first place in the 162-runner field.

Sophomore Marisa Perreault led Mundelein's push with a fourth-place clocking of 19:20 to edge Warren sophomore Meg Tully by one second.

"I thought I did pretty well, but I wish I would have run faster in the middle of the race," said Perreault. "The course was kind of fun to run on because it was muddy, and I think we did OK."

Collard was the clear-cut leader of the Gators' short-handed squad Saturday as CLS finished in 13th place in the team standings. Many runners on numerous teams had to miss the meet to take the ACT exam.

"Her (Collard) and Kelly (McNeely) ran together the whole race and Marianne pulled away at the very end," said CLS coach Niki Lydon. "We were missing our second, third, and fourth runners today."

Stevenson had a balanced team effort to take sixth behind the senior duo of Anna Frank in 28th and Tessa Lancaster in 39th. Sophomore Mackenzie Levy (10th in Class 3A in 2009) took 43rd, but she has not been at 100 percent strength early in the season.

"As a group we did pretty well and it was nice to see our top two seniors do so well," said Patriots coach Don Proft. "I expect (Levy) to be back to where she was, but right now she has some nagging injuries."

Grant took 11th, led by freshman standout Lindsey Lewis in 12th place. Lakes' dynamic junior duo of Kathryn Dean (10th), and Hannah Wittman (11th) led the Eagles. Haley Loprieno was Huntley's top runner in eighth.

"That was probably their best team race overall and Lindsey did pretty well for only her fourth race as a freshman," said Grant coach Jeff Durlak. "She is still learning what she can do right now, and I think throughout the year the team will get better."

Grayslake Central's Korina Gomez led coach Jim Centella's team in 20th place, followed by teammates Miranda Gomez (31st) and Elsie Rehberg (46th).

"The course is very muddy so footing was an unknown factor," said Warren coach Cheryl Anderson, whose team was without top runner Gabby Nystrom. "At this point of the season, it's not worth getting somebody injured. So I told them to run with their heads up and not get too close to the person in front of them. But Meg (Tully) had an awesome race."

Maddie Jelinas and Elizabeth Berton placed 41-42 to pace 15th-place Lake Zurich's depleted lineup.

"I'm missing three or four girls today because of the ACT, but I was really happy with them considering the course conditions and their inexperience," said Lake Zurich coach Ian Silverman. "We had three girls who were running their first varsity race and four of them this was their first varsity race, but they looked awesome."