Kaneland keeps climbing up

Forget baby steps. Kaneland's boys cross country team went straight for those giant leaps.

The Knights ran their final Western Sun Conference race Saturday at Kishwaukee College in Malta. After finishing eighth, eighth and fifth in their first three years, a strong one-two punch and tight pack from three through five led Kaneland to second place behind conference champion Geneva.

The Vikings won with 49, followed by Kaneland at 71 and Sycamore 79.

"That is an encouraging step," Kaneland coach Chad Clarey said. "To be somewhat flat as a whole team today to still come out second was a nice thing I think we can mentally build on."

Matt Reusche and Trevor Holm finished fifth and sixth to lead the Knights. Reusche continues to come on strong after an early season injury

"Our front two helped our points a lot," Clarey said. "It's nice to see Matt get closer to where Trevor has been. Trevor had a really fine race. For us to be as close to them (the top four individual finishers) is a plus."

The Knights also had a 46-second split with their top five and 53 seconds for top six, numbers Clarey was glad to see. Edgar Valle, Dominic Furco, Logan Markuson and Grant Alef ran three through six for the Knights.

"Some were not feeling too well today," Clarey said. "It's nice to have that number even on a bad day when they don't feel well that they were that close to the top two runners."

For the third straight year, Geneva was the class of the conference. Kevin Sparks led the charge, winning in 15:27.

"He ran really well," Geneva coach Bob Thomson said. "I'm really happy for Kevin being a senior and conference champ."

Kevin McDowell, who was out sick Wednesday and still not 100 percent Saturday, placed fourth, 22 seconds behind Sparks. Having defeated Sycamore's Kinsley Tyson, the runner-up Saturday, earlier this year, Thomson knew McDowell wasn't at full strength.

"I'd rather him be under the weather now than in a couple weeks," Thomson said.

Justin Rodriguez and Connor Bartel both earned all-conference for Geneva in 13th and 14th, respectively. Ryan Ahern and Eric Blake followed closely in 17th and 18th.

Batavia, which finished fourth with 93 points, also had two all-conference runners. Sophomore Mike Redmond took eighth and Sam Stoner 12th, while Matt Lash missed by 1 spot finishing 15th.

"This was the best team race we've had collectively all season," Batavia coach Mike DiDomenico said. "I had outside coaches come up and tell us how well we ran. That's a credit to our kids.

"Our kids are stepping up. We turned a few heads today. We're real excited about how we're coming along."

Glenbard South's Collin White finished seventh in 16:11, the highlight of the race for Raiders coach Andy Preuss.

"Collin ran great," Preuss said. "I think he took that step. Seventh obviously with those teams there is pretty good. I told him he belongs up here (with the top runners)."

Grant Gibson and Arsal Shareef were next in 21st and 22nd for the Raiders, who finished fifth as a team.

"If it was a perfect race I think we'd have four guys in the top 20," Preuss said. "It didn't go as well as we wanted but there's some hope there."

The one team of the eight Saturday not sure of it's conference home in 2010, Preuss said the Raiders' next conference meet could be next fall against Fenton, Riverside-Brookfield and the rest of the Metro Suburban. No decision has been made.