Ryan, Cary-Grove finish off FVC title

Cary-Grove’s Sarah Ryan couldn’t skip school with most of her classmates Monday.

She had to settle for a Fox Valley Conference record in the 200-meter dash and a fourth conference team championship instead.

“I was kind of bummed. We had senior ditch day (Monday) and I couldn’t ditch,” Ryan said.

Ryan took the lead coming out of the curve and finished the 200 in 25.44 seconds, .55 ahead of Hampshire’s Ashley Fouch, who finished in 25.99. Ryan, who also won the 100 last Thursday before the meet was suspended because of weather, beat the previous timing system mark of Huntley’s Coryn Marzejon (25.54) in 2007 and non-timing system mark of Dundee-Crown’s Diedra Brinkman (25.3) in 1992, .24 seconds is added to manual timings to determine accurate times.

The Trojans had all but claimed the team title before the meet was suspended. The meet resumed Monday at Crystal Lake Central with three events needing to be completed. Cary-Grove won two of the three and finished with 159 points. Huntley was second followed by Crystal Lake Central.

“It’s really nice,” said Ryan of winning the FVC in all four of her years at C-G. “It’s a great team.”

C-G freshman Talia Duzey won the 1,600 run in 5:16.37, beating CL Central’s Kelly McNeely, who finished in 5:16.72.

Huntley topped top-seeded Cary-Grove in the 1,600 relay to finish the meet. Katlyn Luebke, Tina Driscoll, Taylor Schau and Antonia Moore won in 4:04.10, more than 2.5 seconds ahead of the Trojans. Moore trailed going into the final curve, but passed C-G’s Kathie Wollney by the end of the curve and dominated the final 100 meters.

“I was waited for her to die out,” Moore said. “I was trying to picture how I run a (normal) 400. If would have tried to stay with her (early), probably would have died. So I ran like I would usually run it and finish with my kick.”