Lake Park headed to state

Days before the Class 3A girls cross country sectional at Schaumburg's Busse Woods, Geneva coach Bob Thomson said his girls had yet to run their best race of the season.

Perhaps they did that Saturday, when the Vikings placed first out of 20 teams with a total of 83 points and qualified for next Saturday's state meet at Detweiller Park in Peoria.

Is there more to come? Thomson thinks so.

"They still might not have run their best race of the year," said Thomson, whose Vikings have not made it to state as a team since 2004. "We hope they are saving their best for next week. It was exceptional."

Geneva was one of five teams to qualify for state. The others were second-place Lyons (118), Hinsdale Central (132), Naperville North (141) and Lake Park (153).

Leading the way for the 7 individuals who qualified for state was St. Charles East's Lizzy Hynes, who won the 3-mile race with a time of 17:41.

"I was really happy," Hynes said. "Some of the girls went out really fast…I worked my way up. I just wanted to see my time at the mile, and I was right on time, so I decided to try and run away with it. Kelly Whitley from Geneva was right there, but I wanted to stay ahead. I was worried to really push it, but then I just had a kick at the end and I did."

York's Meghan Frigo (fifth place) also qualified individually, along with Naperville Central's Shelby Pealer (sixth place), St. Charles North's Stephanie Strasser (eighth), Maine South's Kristen Zillmer (10th), Downers Grove South's Casey Harms (11th) and Hinsdale South's Meagan DeSalvo (13th).

"I'm really excited," Frigo said. "All the hard work has paid off."

Whitley led Geneva with her second-place showing and time of 17:51, along with Liza Tauscher and Rachel Hammond.

"I'm really excited, we all are," Whitley said. "We are ecstatic. We really wanted to get top five (as a team) and we knew there'd be really tough teams here, so we had to get out fast and push ourselves the whole race."

"Kelly is gutsy out there," Thomson added. "She's a competitor and I think she is going to be right in the thick of things next week."

Eliaine Kuckertz and Lauren Zumbach guided Hinsdale Central with their fourth and ninth-place showing.

"The No. 1 goal was to qualify, so we are certainly happy and relieved about that," Hinsdale Central coach Mark McCabe said of his team's third-place showing. "There are a lot teams and individuals here today that won't be going at all (to state)…the state meet next week is going to be no more competitive than this race."

Naperville North's top runners were 21st-place Michelle Stratton, 30th-place Joanna Brodecki and 31st-place Adrienne Scherz.

Lindsay Flannagan led Lake Park with her third-place showing, followed by Trisha Ehrhardt and Ashley Prochazka.

"Not bad," Lake Park coach Harvey Braus said of the Lancers' fifth-place finish. "We are very excited. Our girls ran a great team race. Obviously, we have a real good front runner in Lindsay Flannagan, but the rest of the kids ran fantastic. They ran the race they are confident in. They were able to do it today."

The following teams placed in the top 10: Wheaton North (sixth place, 163 points), York (184), Downers Grove South (199), Hoffman Estates (243) and Wheaton Warrenville South (258).

St. Charles East placed 11th with 287, followed by Downers Grove North (312), Benet (316), St. Charles North (349) and Maine South (350).

Schaumburg (356) placed 16th, along with Glenbard East (474), Hinsdale South (479), Willowbrook (503) and Conant (583).