Girls track and field: St. Charles North captures first DuKane title
As freshman Kara Glenn stood at the edge of the exchange zone for her leg of the 4x400 meter relay, a thought crossed her mind from her first DuKane Conference meet from back in March.
In that meet, Glenn crossed the line first for St. Charles North, thinking that she had won the event and the meet for her team. However, the 4x400 team would be disqualified for unsportsmanlike conduct after she threw the baton, leading to the meet being given to Batavia.
This time, with the North Stars holding a 9.5 point lead over the Bulldogs and the team just needing to finish the final event, Glenn just had one thought when she eventually got the baton — don’t drop it.
“We weren’t thinking in the past, only about looking forward,” Glenn said. “I wanted to make sure I followed the rules and had everything in check. It’s just about running as fast I can and handing it off to my teammate so she could bring it home for us.”
Luckily for the North Stars, she held on. And as a result, so did they, finishing with 145 points to clinch the program’s first conference title.
“We just have so many talented girls on this team, and if you put a good coaching staff behind it and get to inspire them, it just becomes a domino effect,” second-year North Stars coach Anthony Enright said. “Just the positive outlook these girls had was amazing. If you look at the events where we wanted to score two girls, we did that a lot.”
A lot of the double-scoring events were in the distance events, in which Glenn (3,200, 10:55.36) and sophomore Gwen Hobson (800, 2:18.81) took victories in their events, with a teammate (Glenn in 800, sophomore Julia Rodney in 3,200) taking third in the same event for 16 points.
“Kara, Gwen and Julia are just a triple threat,” Enright said. “And they’re multi-dimensional too. They’re not just a two-miler or a miler or an 800. They do it all.”
Sophomore Alexzandria Richardson won the 200 in 25.29 to put the North Stars ahead by 9.5 points heading into the final event.
“I definitely wasn’t expecting to win that,” Richardson said. “I rounded the corner and I was in front of everyone. I always feel like I struggle to keep going down the stretch and people pass me, so I made sure that didn’t happen and it worked.”
Senior Tosin Oshin also picked up a victory in the field for the North Stars, winning the shot put with a throw of 11.36 meters.
The Bulldogs followed closely behind in the standings, finishing the meet with 133.5 points. It marks the first time that the team competed in a DuKane Conference championship and did not walk away with the team trophy.
But even though it wasn’t the result he wanted, Batavia coach Justin Allison said he was beyond proud of the effort his team put up.
“They stepped up in ways that on paper they weren’t supposed to get,” Allison said. “We always say that being a Bulldog is being tough, and man were we tough out there. We hung in there and double scored in a lot of things we thought we weren’t going to get.”
Leading the charge in Batavia’s scoring was sprinter Elizabeth Wende. After going 4 for 4 in events during indoors, the junior finished with wins in the 100 (12.22), 400 (58.35) and anchored the 4x100 team (49.51). She also took third in the 200.
“She takes a lot of pride in her work and she takes it upon herself to always be prepared physically and mentally, and it showed,” Allison said. “I know she was a little gassed in the 200, but winning three out of the four events she was in, she did her job and more.”
Also adding to Batavia’s total was sophomore Abby Wirth, who won the triple jump (11.19 meters) and was a part of the 4x100 team.
Rounding out the top three in the meet was Wheaton North, who finished with 101.5 points. 30 of those points came from sophomore Sophia Dalrymple, who secured victories in the 100 hurdles (14.71), 300 hurdles (44.84) and the long jump (5.46 meters) and broke the meet records in all of those events.
“It was just a really good day,” Dalrymple said. “I’ve been having a hard time with long jump this whole season, and I felt like I finally got the breakthrough that I needed. And same with the 100 hurdles. I was just trying to send it, because it felt like this was the day that I should.”
Lake Park finished just outside the podium with 88 points. The Lancers finished with wins in the high jump (Olivia Stranz, 1.57 meters), pole vault (Eva Bach, 3.66 meters) and discus (Klara Volkova, 42.46 meters), which were all meet records.
Geneva placed fifth in the team standings with 83.5 points. The Vikings’ 4x200 team of Hadley Mason, Bridget Hecker, Alyssa Golden and Harper Kobbeman had the team’s only win, finishing the relay in 1:46.23.
St. Charles East took sixth on the day with 64 points. Madeline Piekarz (200) and Addie Schilb (triple jump) were the top finishers on the day, with each finishing second in their respective events.
Wheaton Warrenville South (seventh, 57.5 points) had two victories on the day from Nicole Poglitsch in the 1,600 (5:10.26) and in the 4x800 (9:46.76).
Glenbard North rounded out the teams with 26 points, with their best finish being fourth in both the high jump and 4x200 relay.