Girls track and field: Prospect in command of weather-delayed MSL meet
The athletes at Friday's Mid-Suburban League girls track and field championship couldn't have been blamed for thinking it was mid-November instead of the latter stages of May.
The competitors at the meet at Hoffman Estates were greeted with cold temperatures, an icy wind, and rain that seemed to be coming at you sideways.
Many thought the meet would not go on, but it did - albeit with a lengthy delay before the start - and once it began, the talent of the MSL contenders shined through.
The Prospect relay team of Lily Ginsberg, Cameron Kalaway, Elena Barabaric and Reese Lettow won the first event of the night, the 4 x 800 relay, in the time of 9:55.14.
"It was definitely exciting," said Lettow, a senior. "I feel that our team is very close, and we were ready to run."
Lettow was in the majority who felt that it was touch-and-go as to whether the event would be held as planned.
"Honestly, it's just been a mystery, the whole day," she said. "We just waited to see what was going to happen, but we tried to stay motivated because we knew that most likely we were going to have to push through. That kind of helped us, so while we were inside we tried to stay positive."
"We had already been here awhile (Lettow and her teammates arrived at Hoffman at 3:30 p.m. for a projected 4:45 p.m. start), and we heard people talking about the weather and saying it was really bad - dangerous was the word they used. We didn't really know what to think."
Prospect held a commanding lead in the team race as the meet continued into the night with most events completed, and there were some sparkling individual champs that were crowned as well.
Daria Tersina of the Knights won the 100 in 12:52; Brooke Husby from Barrington (15.87) was victorious in the 100 hurdles, while Fillies teammate Breanne Dunn (46.66) took the 300 hurdles.
Audrey Ginsberg of Prospect was the winner of the 400 in 59.21 and the 800 in 2:25.52.
In field events, Kylee Stammer of Palatine took first in the discus and shot put; Lucy Ordway of Barrington won the high jump; Kiera White from Fremd won titles in the long jump and triple jump; while Melina Moreno of Rolling Meadows was tops in the pole vault.
Palatine won the 4 x 100 relay while Barrington was triumphant in the 4 x 200.
Anna Harden of Hersey took the first-place medal in the 3,200 in 11:16.83.
"She (Harden) is so fun to coach," said Hersey's Danielle Freeman, a cross-country coach who was called into service at the MSL track meet. "She's only a sophomore and she's been running pretty much year-round since she was a third or fourth grader. It's great to see someone like Anna who is so knowledgeable and so involved in her training, and she knows when to push and when to pull back. She's a once-in-a-lifetime athlete and I can't wait to see what the next two years hold for her."
Regarding the weather delay, Freeman added: "I haven't coached track since 2017 so to be honest, I didn't know how they were going to handle it. I knew we were not going to able to come back (Saturday) because of the Memorial Day holidays, so I told the girls just to sit tight and wait it out. There was never a thought that we weren't going to do this. The girls really wanted to run tonight."