St. Charles E. ready for state
The race St. Charles East’s girls cross country team has been pointing to all season is finally here.
The Saints — along with both St. Charles North’s girls and boys teams — will be on the starting line Saturday at Detweiller Park in Peoria for the Class 3A state meet.
With four front-runners who have been pushing each other all year, Denise Hefferin’s Saints enter the state meet with a chance to bring home a state trophy. In the past three weeks they won conference and regional titles before missing a second-place sectional finish at Wheaton North by 1 point.
“Any coach’s goal is the last race is your best team race,” Hefferin said. “I’m not going to make a prediction on where we’ll finish as a team. This (sectional) is just a good building block and confidence-builder of what they have the potential of doing downstate. We know individual goals as far as places and how far up they want to finish and that’s going to put together a really good team race for us.”
Hefferin has enjoyed watching how senior Mallory Abel has worked with freshman Torree Scull this fall. After Scull edged Abel to win conference, the Northwestern-bound Abel won the regional the following week.
They finished 3-4 at sectionals last week as they continue to push and help each other.
“She’s (Mallory) been a really good mentor as far as training discipline, showing her some of the ropes,” Hefferin said. “Torree is a newer runner and some of the things we take for granted that every runner knows being a freshman she doesn’t know all of the routines, the ropes, how races work. Mallory has done a really nice job telling her some strategy, helping her pace in practices and Torree has been a good help to Mallory too.
“Having just one front-runner has always been difficult (for Abel) so it’s nice that we have not one but four that all train and work together every single day so they come out here and they have some familiar faces on the course.”
Hefferin has two other juniors right behind, Sarah Hill and Jess Evans, who took 15th and 20th at sectionals. Fifth-runner Kristin Sheehan joins Abel as the other senior in St. Charles East’s lineup.
St. Charles East ran once this year at Detweiller at the Notre Dame meet but it was the same weekend as homecoming. This will be the first time the Saints have their regular lineup run together in Peoria.
Shari Hayes saw her St. Charles North squad also qualify for state by placing fourth at the Wheaton North sectional, the second straight year the North Stars have made it to state.
St. Charles North heads to Peoria with a different goal than the Saints. Sydney Stuenkel has had as good of senior season as any area runner, and after her runner-up finish at sectional last week when she beat both of St. Charles East’s top runners, Stuenkel is looking for an all-state ending to her high school cross country career.
“We’ll go down there and try to do the best we can,” Hayes said. “We try to have our best PRs of the season. We’re not a state trophy team so we go and try to be the best team we can be on that day. Run PRs. Hopefully Sydney will be all-state. That’s a goal for the team and build for next year.”
Batavia freshman Lexi Slome and West Aurora junior Rachel Cavender finished ninth and 10th, respectively, at Wheaton North to qualify individually.
In the boys race, St. Charles North took second at Wheaton North to once again qualify for state.
“The pack is huge, there’s a lot of great teams here (at sectional), the fact we are up running with those teams is awesome,” North Stars coach Kevin Harrington said.
Harrington has preached running as a pack all season and his top five of Zach Heuer, Spencer Gray, Nick Borger, Grant Markowicz and Declan Duggan finished between 11th and 28th at the sectional with a split of just 19 seconds.
Many in the North Stars lineup were at state last year when the team struggled to a 25th-place finish. Harrington said his team will take an outlook Saturday similar to one the North Stars’ girls team has.
“We did not run well at state last year,” Harrington said. “These guys, there’s not a whole lot of pressure. They want to go down and run like we can, see if we can run some PRs. When you get downstate certain teams have great days and if you are the team that has a great day you can be top 10. On the other hand you have a bad day and you can be 25th. We have gotten to the point we can laugh about it (25th). We’ll go down there pretty loose.”
West Aurora grabbed the last team spot at Wheaton North, taking fifth for the second straight state berth for Matt Sinnott’s program that previously had not qualified in 30 years.
Geneva’s Mike Bianchina, seventh at sectionals, and Batavia’s Chris Spadafora (11th) also qualified. Bianchina ran at the Woodruff invite earlier this season and took 42nd.
“That was a good race and gave me confidence to pursue the rest of the season,” Bianchina said. “I’m hoping for a better place than last year (177th), so I would love to crack 100 would be good. And try to get a PR too and get close to 15-flat.”
In Class 2A both Marmion and Kaneland qualified their teams.
At Belvidere, sophomore Kyle Carter (15:59), junior John Meisenger (16:18), junior Brandon Huber (16:34), senior Miroljub Marin (16:37) and junior Conor Johnson (16:39) finished as Kaneland’s top five runners for a team score of 206, edging Grayslake Central (208) and Burlington Central (209).
Marmion finished second to Glenbard South at the Nazareth sectional a week after beating the Raiders at regionals.
The Cadets put all five of their runners in the top 16: senior Nolan Dickson (fourth), senior Will Graft (seventh), sophomore John Graft (13th), senior Brady Hunt (14th) and sophomore Kevin Grahovec (16th).
“Things are shaping up and we are sticking to our initial goal of another trophy,” said Marmion coach Dan Billish. “The boys are coming together at the right time.”
The Cadets are coming off a third-place finish at state a year ago when they broke a tie with Normal on their sixth runner. Another state trophy would mean a lot after a season that has had its share of adversity.
“I do feel that we are on the right track and in a better position than last year,” Billish said. “Nolan should be a top 10 candidate and the hope is that he will have all-state company in teammates Matt Choice, Kevin Grahovec and Will Graft.
“It will take a solid day, 1-5 to un-seed Belvedere, but the boys are up to the challenge. It has been a season of adversity and the boys have weathered the storms and come out stronger, more mature men. To me, that is the greatest accomplishment of this year, but for them, a trophy will reinforce that.”
In the girls Class 2A race a pair of juniors Jenna Koerner from Aurora Central and Kara Kalisz from Rosary qualified as did Aurora Christian’s boys and girls teams in Class 1A.