Girls track and field: Flotte’s 38 points lead Geneva to team title at Kane County Invite
Geneva freshman Alyssa Flotte was on a mission Thursday night.
Heading into the Kane County Invitational at St. Charles East, Flotte realized that in all three of her individual events, (100-meter dash, 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles) she was seeded second in all of them.
Her goal was simple then.
Beat the seed.
Her quest started in the 100 hurdles, which she ran in a personal-best time of 16.01 seconds for the win. A jog back down to the start line later, she got her second win of the night in the 100 dash after crossing the line in another personal-best time of 12.46.
After getting a little more of a breather, the freshman phenom got the gold for the third time, winning the 300 hurdles in yet another personal-best time of 46.76 seconds.
Her 30 points, plus another eight after anchoring the 4x100 relay to a second-place finish, were the most by a single athlete on the night and helped Geneva to a team title with 107 overall points.
“It just felt great,” Flotte said. “I’m just glad that I get to keep helping my team out and adding up points.”
Geneva girls track and field coach Peter Raak said a lot of Flotte’s success on the track can be attributed to the hard work she’s put into her events at practice. And after seeing that, it’s real easy to cheer for her.
“She has a wonderful personality and is always humble,” Raak said. “I think when people see someone with that attitude, it inspires them as well. And people like to be around her, because she’s so nice and kind, so she gets along with the other girls as well. It’s a good relationship that they have and great track spirit they have together.”
The Vikings had two more wins on the day in the field, as senior Reilly Day took the gold in both the long jump (17 feet, 9.5 inches) and triple jump (36-9). Raak felt that the team put together a nice performance across the board.
“We’re progressing nicely as a team,” Raak said. “We’ve got good senior leadership and also have talent across all the events. We also have some elite athletes, but they all really want to do their best for the team, which is nice to see.”
Batavia, which hosted the meet, came up just short with 99 points. The Bulldogs were originally supposed to host the meet Friday afternoon at home, but after discussing with the other coaches, Bulldogs coach Justin Allison decided to move the meet to Thursday night.
“The mindset of coaches is that we want to get in good weather for our kids so they can perform and get better marks and times so we can use them for conference and sectionals,” Allison said.
The Bulldogs got a majority of their points from their relay teams. The team of Izzy Taylor, Elizabeth Wende, Madison Taylor and Mariah Taylor got wins in both the 4x100 relay (48.33, 11th best time in Illinois this season) and in the 4x200 (1:43.25, ninth best time in Illinois). Taylor, Wende and Mariah Wilson also were a part of the winning 4x400 team with a time of 4:05.97. The 4x800 team also led off the meet with a win in 9:47.46.
Allison said that while the girls’ performance on the track was impressive, the work that they did with coach Courtney Ford really showed in the relays.
“We executed on our handoffs very well,” Allison said. “Coach Ford did an amazing job with improving the handoffs in our relays. Those handoffs were choice, and everyone was just hitting on all cylinders.”
St. Charles North rounded out the top three with 90 points on the night. The North Stars only got one win, with Tosin Oshin winning the shot put with a throw of 36 feet, 5 inches. Despite that, North managed six second-place finishes across the board to give them a shot at the top spot, including two from senior Reagan Sipla in the 800 (2:18.19) and 400 (1:00.80).
Sipla, who’s been on the team for only four weeks according to first-year coach Anthony Enright, has been a great add for the North Stars.
“We knew even in the first practice that she was something special,” Enright said. “And I think that’s in part because we recognized that she was willing to do anything. She’s just a coach’s dream.”
Enright said one of his main goals for the season was putting his athletes in the best position to compete for a team win, and he felt the girls have been able to do that and hopes they continue to do so into the postseason.
“We want to get those personal-bests and work together to try and score in every event,” Enright said. “We want to see how far we go as a team, whatever we can do while still having a good time and staying healthy.”