Rosary's Ronzone runs away with Royal-Cadet title
Madison Ronzone looked around for much of the Royal-Cadet Invitational Saturday at Marmion and didn't see any runners anywhere close.
That's a good thing as the Rosary senior ended up winning the race by 26 seconds, though the lack of competition left her time a little higher than she hoped.
"I knew there wouldn't be a lot of people to push me," said Ronzone, who finished second in this race last year. "There weren't a ton of teams here. I just wanted to come out here and get a good workout in."
Ronzone finished second Wednesday in a meet at St. Viator. She ran her first mile Saturday in 5 minutes, 36 seconds and realized she already was off the pace she is used to.
Ronzone ended up winning in 19:12, well ahead of runner-up Lexi Weltin from Glenbard East.
"I knew it was slow but I also knew it would be difficult to keep the pace going without anyone next to me," Ronzone said. "I knew my time wasn't super fast. I'm OK with it. I will have a better race next week. We're getting really excited for next weekend."
Rosary will compete next week at Peoria Notre Dame's Invitational.
The Royals took fourth Saturday. Freshman Megan Ronzone also finished in the Top 10 in seventh in 19:55, and freshman Ally Tippett was 19th.
Oak Park-River Forest won the meet with 37 points ahead of Benet's 72 and Glenbard East's 74.
The Redwings had the best pack of the day with their runners finishing 11th, 12th, 13th, 15th and 21st: Jessica Jugovich, Rachel Strons, Amanda DeSitter, Julia Walchessen and Stephanie Erickson, respectively.
Waubonsie Valley's Cassandra Tsagaris finished third in 19:39.
Boys race: While Ronzone breezed in the girls race, Wheaton Academy's Jacob Robleski was pushed from start to finish on his way to winning in 16:33.50.
The competition came mainly from two runners: Lincoln-Way East's Scott Platek who finished second in 16:34.26, and Robleski's teammate Jimmy Ridge, third in 16:42.
"Staying together with Jimmy and having the guy from East push me at the end helped a lot," Robleski said. "I think we paced each other. I think we both paced pretty well which is why I was able to kick at the end."
The Warriors started their season last week at Fenton where Robleski took 21st.
On Saturday he took the lead a little after the two-mile mark.
"This was a good result and we have our largest and most difficult race next week so it's good going into that," Robleski said of running at Peoria. "That's always a fun race."
The Warriors placed two more runners in the Top 10: Mitchell Smith in sixth and Jeffrey Ridge in eighth. Wheaton Academy totaled 37 points, second only to Lincoln-Way East's 28.
Glenbard East finished third led by Patrick Mikel in ninth in 17:50. East Aurora was fourth and Marmion fifth; Ryan Weber was 22nd and Jacob Heineman 26th for the host Cadets.