Girls cross country: Shepard, Lake Zurich advance

With chilly temperatures in the upper 30's and a relatively dry 3-mile Busse Woods course, people should have know there would be some pretty fast running Saturday morning at the Class 3A Schaumburg girls cross country sectional.

That was definitely the case as Jacobs senior Lauren Van Vlierbergen smashed the previous course record by 13 seconds with her first-place time of 17:07.

Personal-best times were the order of the day as Palatine pretty much rolled to the team title by a 52-79 margin over runner-up Schaumburg. That set the stage for the push for the final three team berths to the state meet in Peoria next Saturday.

Third-place Fremd grabbed that next trip to Detweiller Park with 178 points while Lake Zurich and Hoffman Estates wound up in a 196-196 deadlock for fourth place and the final two team berths downstate.

Barrington (216 points) held off a strong effort from Grant (226) for sixth place while Warren (232) was right behind the Bulldogs in eighth. Libertyville placed 10th with 250 points. This season marks the third time in four years that the Bears have advanced to the state meet as a team.

Lake Zurich's successful effort was led by junior Caitlin Shepard in 17th, junior Kristie Houghton in 40th, senior Laura McNair in 41st, and senior Nicole Syverson in 43rd.

After missing last year with a stress fracture, Shepard has been the driving force behind the Bears' pack in her first full season in the sport.

"The race was really fast so I thought I had a decent time (18:02) for how fast the race was going," said Shepard, whose team also got a 65th from freshman Kelly Ledinsky. "I think we all did really well because we had some new girls who never ran at sectionals before."

Lake Zurich has put together another great season with a second straight North Suburban Conference championship two weeks ago and a second at the powerful Palatine regional last weekend.

"We had a tight pack, especially through our top four and our fifth runner (Ledinsky) made up a lot of ground in the last mile," said Lake Zurich coach Ian Silverman. "The times were really good today and there's always about eight teams in the mix for the five places."

If there was one Lake County area runner who really came through like a champion Saturday that would have to be Grant junior Madison Romig.

Romig really got the job done with a 10th-place time of 17:56 to earn the sixth of seven at-large berths to the fabled state meet next Saturday.

Romig's game plan turned out to be a great one as her drive to beat the 18-minute barrier proved to be the key with Crystal Lake South's Kiley Britten (17:57) earning the seventh and final at-large individual trip to Peoria.

"Leading up to this race I was looking at girls times and I knew I had to break 18 minutes to have a chance," said Romig, whose previous best time was 18:02. "I started off pretty far back at the beginning and after the first lap I started picking it up and I kept moving up each lap."

Romig joins some pretty elite company in Fox Lake as she became only the second runner to reach Detweiller Park since Pam Staton was an all-stater for the Bulldogs in 2004.

"She (Romig) moved her way up in the race nicely, she had a personal best time, and all of our girls ran awesome today," said Grant coach Jeff Durlak. "The way she has been running recently, hopefully she has a chance to run even faster (at state) than she did today."

Warren's solid showing was led by Becky Haight (22nd), Brooke Wilt (34th), and Emily Jahn (37th).

"I think we ran well - they raced as hard as they could and that's all I can ask for," said Warren coach Brett Heimstead. "Top to bottom I think it's one of the toughest sectionals in the state and I think there are eight ranked teams and only five go forward."

Libertyville freshman Melissa Manetsch led the Wildcats in 26th place despite not being at 100 percent for the meet.

"She (Manetsch) was sick all week so she didn't look like herself today," said Libertyville coach Bill Etnyre "She just ran out of gas and couldn't do it today. But we're a young team with only two seniors in our top seven, and we just need to get better."

Stevenson freshman Isabelle Sparreo was impressive taking 23rd in the pressure-packed meet while junior teammate Jessica Philipp placed 32nd for the Patriots.

Class 2A: It was not easy, but the Vernon Hills girls cross country team will be heading downstate again after earning the fifth and final berth to Peoria out of the Kaneland sectional with 137 points.

Junior Vivian Overbeck led the Cougars' surge in fourth place followed by teammates Samantha Hershman (21st), and Lauren Katz (26th). Vernon Hills took third in the state in 2013.

Lakes junior Kortney Schardt easily locked up an at-large berth to Detweiller Park with a third-place finish while senior teammate Danielle Griesbaum just missed the cut-off point in 22nd.

The Eagles took ninth place in the sectional while Grayslake Central placed 13th behind top runner Megan Girmscheid (33rd).