Cross country: St. Viator's Schumacher wins boys sectional title
St. Viator senior Mikey Schumacher enjoyed a postrace chat with Burlington Central's Yusuf Baig after the two locked up in a tight race for first place.
"He seemed like a good kid and a really good competitor," Schumacher said. "It wasn't like we were buddy-buddy in the race. We were competing. We both wanted to win. It was good to get a really competitive race on a nice course."
Schumacher held off Baig with a winning time of 15:42.1 to take the Class 2A Woodstock North Sectional individual championship Saturday at Emricson Park. Baig finished in 15:46.9.
Both runners will head to Peoria's Detweiller Park next week with hopes of bringing home the state title in the 2A boys race.
Deerfield scored 55 points to take the boys team title, followed by Crystal Lake Central (141), Grayslake Central (143), Belvidere North (154), Woodstock (155), Sycamore (203) and Lakes (207). Cary-Grove (208) and Prairie Ridge (210) just missed the seventh team-qualifying spot.
Individual qualifiers were Schumacher, Baig, Sterling's Dale Johnson, Prairie Ridge's Will Gelon, Chicago Senn's Tedros Mekonen, Cary-Grove's Ian Barnes, Niles Notre Dame's Luke Davey, Boylan's Alex Valerio, Antioch's Lucas Baronello and Burlington Central's Ryan Kries.
Crystal Lake South won its second consecutive girls sectional team title, scoring 100 points. Grayslake Central (112), Vernon Hills (116), Lakes (134), Crystal Lake Central (147), Prairie Ridge (148) and Northside (159) were the qualifying teams.
Northside's Elia Ton-That won the girls race, with Crystal Lake Central's Hadley Ferrero and St. Viator's Mary Grace Hegberg in the next two spots. Hegberg headed the list of individual qualifiers. Lake Forest's Isabella Marsico and Sophia Lane, Dixon's Emma Smith, C-G's Jocelyn Onstot, Wauconda's Jessie Pakanski, Carmel's Izzy Bing, Belvidere's Nine Fiore, Sycamore's Lily Baker and Deerfield's Madeline Trella were the other individual qualifiers.
Schumacher said the Emricson course was the most challenging he had run this season.
"This one, the whole thing is a grind," he said. "It's the hilliest course we've run this year. That's why they call it cross country. From 1½ to 2½ miles, Yusuf and I were trading off making moves. That last uphill, about 800 meters to go, I made my move."
Baig and Schumacher had not raced before this season, but had watched each other's times.
"I've seen the rankings," Baig said. "It's great to race him and I'm really glad I get to race him again (at state). The hills got me a little today, but I know there are some things I can work on this week. The taper's really starting to kick in."
In the girls race, Hegberg fought through a cold to take third place.
"I've been sick all week, so I wasn't feeling my best," Hegberg said. "I started the first 100 meters and was like, 'Oh, my gosh! I don't feel good at all.' I tried to dig deep.
"My body's trying to get over a little bit of a bug I caught this last week. Hopefully I'll be good by state. It's a bummer, but try to forget about this one and try not to be too hard on yourself."
Crystal Lake South was led by Bella Gonzalez in fourth and Abby Machesky in ninth place.
"We talked to the girls the night before, there's a ton of competition here," Gators coach Ken Greenfield said. "I said as long as we run well, we could take third or fourth, or we could win it. As long as we put our best foot forward, I'd be happy.
"We ran a really good race, our girls handled the prep really well. They were on their game. I'm really proud of them."
Grayslake Central was led by Bella Domier (eighth) and Sara Armstrong (14th). Anna Todd (11th) and Reina Hill (12th) led Vernon Hills to third place.
"We knew if we ran well it would be between us, South and Vernon Hills," Grayslake Central coach Jimmy Centella said. "We ran very well. One or two individuals may be hard on themselves and think they could have run better, but we'll try to fix that for next weekend.
"The middle of the season we had colds, sinus infections, sprained ankles, a lot of stress. We're coming out of that and clicking at the right time. I'm optimistic we'll be ready to run our best next Saturday and we'll see where we land."