Boys cross country: St. Charles East repeats UEC championship
St. Charles East's boys cross country team defended its Upstate Eight Conference championship Saturday at Sunrise Park in Bartlett, and if the Saints keep running like this there could be even bigger accomplishments in store the next three weeks.
Coach Chris Bosworth compared the Saints' times favorably on the same course to last year's conference winner and now DuPage Valley member Neuqua Valley. Those Wildcats went on to take fourth in state.
"I'm not saying we'll get fourth but a pack is dangerous," Bosworth said. "I've been brought up running through North Central (College) is the power of the pack. When one is in, five is in. We had a great day."
That Saints pack included a 2-second split from the top three runners and a 24-second split from the first five.
Seniors Michael Gerkin, Mark Sciurba and Jack Rzepecki made up the top three, taking third through fifth overall in 15:30.1, 15:30.2 and 15:32.1.
Brett Izzo was eighth, Jake Beno 16th and Anthony Zilla 24th. In his first varsity race Dan Werner took 27th - an amazing nine minutes faster than he ran the course as a freshman.
St. Charles East also won the frosh-soph race.
"We knew we had a good team," Bosworth said. "We have a great group of kids. We have 70 kids who are all focusing on one goal and that's being the best team we can be. Today was the start of the racing season. Pretty nice to see some times come in and some splits."
Geneva finished second in the Upstate Eight River. As he's done all year, junior Tyler Dau led the way, taking second overall in 15:26, his third-best time of the year.
"I'm happy especially because this isn't a fast course," Dau said. "I did a lot of summer training and it paid off."
Only West Aurora's Connor McCue finished ahead of Dau.
"I went out with him at the beginning but he took off after that first mile and he was gone so I decided to drop back and get with the No. 2 and 3 guys and just run with them," Dau said.
Brian Kuehl and Boon Andrews finished 10th and 11th for the Vikings.
"Everyone is doing really well," Dau said. "Everyone is excited. A lot of PRs and we're really young. I've never been to state so that's a huge goal of mine this year."
St. Charles North coach Kevin Harrington said the North Stars' goal was to battle Batavia for third; the Bulldogs won out with 92 points to the North Stars' 101.
Shea Bastian's 15:33 led the Bulldogs. Jose Rangel came in first for the North Stars in 15:58.
The two divisions of the Upstate Eight ran together and then scored the results separately. The Saints were the overall winner; East Aurora took the Valley crown.
Bartlett took second in the Valley and West Aurora was third. The Blackhawks were led by race champion McCue who followed his victory last week at the West Aurora Stampede with another one Saturday.
After finishing second in the Upstate Eight last year, McCue was pleased with his 4:53 first mile that got him off to a lead he never came close to relinquishing.
"I need to get into race zone," McCue said. "I'm not always going to have those people pushing me but when they are there I'm going to need to know how to react and see how it feels to run that fast. I wanted to work on my first mile and go from there. My coach wanted me to take it out first mile and hammer the second mile again."
Justin Isla led Bartlett running a 16:01 for 21st overall.
Brandon Copeland earned a top 10 finish for Elgin, placing ninth in 15:48. Streamwood's Robert Douglas ran a 15:53 to take 15th.