Cary-Grove, D-C's Manfrin best in FVC

The Cary-Grove boys cross country team achieved Fox Valley Conference dynasty status on Saturday.

The Trojans won their fourth straight title at the FVC meet at Veteran Acres Park in Crystal Lake by placing five senior runners in the top 18 to finish with 43 points. Dundee-Crown finished second (88) followed by Prairie Ridge (93), Crystal Lake Central (95), McHenry (138) and Crystal Lake South (147).

Cary-Grove's Phil Fairleigh, the defending FVC individual champion, whose training the past few weeks was hampered by a sinus infection coupled with influenza, finished in third place (16:55). Eddy Gibbons took fourth (17:07), Matt Klein fifth (17:08), Ryan Gustafson 13th (17:25) and Jason Maxwell 18th (17:30).

"Our top five had an outstanding race today," Cary-Grove coach Layne Holter said. "Eddy and Matt have just kept getting better and have been running stronger and stronger. These guys have been eyeing this race for 12 months, wanting to repeat here.

"We've had a really good group of guys come through and they've worked real hard. They train year round. They're friends, not just teammates, so they work together, challenge each other and support each other."

Dundee-Crown's Anthony Manfrin, who spent half the summer training with his friend Fairleigh, won the individual conference title with his time of 16:35.9. Manfrin and Fairleigh ran together in the lead for most of the race until McHenry senior Jeff Sabatka made a push with half a mile to go as the leaders approached the final climb up John's Hill.

"We saw Sabatka catching up and I said, 'Phil, we've got to go or else he's going to catch us.' I just took it into my own hands and just went. I felt fine. Phil had a tough day, but he had a hard week."

Sabatka eventually passed Fairleigh to finish second in 16:46, but he couldn't reel in Manfrin. The victory was a relief to the Dundee-Crown junior, who was forced to drop out midway through his last two races due to a problematic calf injury.

"I just wanted to hang in and finish the race just to get mentally over the fact that I kept dropping out," Manfrin said. "Today was more of a mental thing for me."

Said Fairleigh: "I've been sick for about three weeks and I just didn't have it in my legs. Last year I won this race by 28 seconds so it's disappointing."

Dundee-Crown senior Nathan Prom finished ninth (17:17), junior Jon Keable was 14th (17:25), senior Mike Wiechmann 30th (18:07) and junior Ryan Smith 34th (17:30).

"I'm very happy with the way we really stepped up," Dundee-Crown coach Tom Smith said. "This is really the first time we've had this group in the starting box all year. We've been piecemeal due to health and guys being out at different times for different reasons. This is a nice time of year to have this happen."