Cross country: Marmion boys, Geneva girls excel at St. Charles North

While cross country teams faced the challenge of running the grueling course at LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve in the St. Charles North Invitational Saturday morning, race officials from the host school had to deal with another issue - a forecast for rain.

In an effort to beat the storms, race times were moved up. Start time for the boys varsity race, won by Marmion Academy, was pushed from 10:30 a.m. to 9:40 a.m. Geneva won the girls varsity race, which started 10 minutes after the boys contest.

The strategy almost worked. A light ran started falling during the girls open race, the last competition of the day.

"This morning, I looked at the weather first about 4:15 and looked like it was coming so (North girls cross country) coach (Shari) Hayes and I talked about changing the race times," said North boys coach Kevin Harrington. "Once we got here, we checked in with some of the coaches and everyone thought it was a good idea and for once, it started raining at 10:45 and it made us look brilliant."

Led by Michael Ronzone and Charlie Zimmer, Marmion squeezed past second place finisher Wheaton Warrenville South by one point, 85 to 86. Ronzone, a senior finished fourth (15:14.7) while his classmate took fifth (15:21.9).

"We've been challenged at times with some of our racing either individually or as a team, but we're at a point in the season where we obviously need to put it all together," said Marmion assistant coach Andrew Bobbitt. "So individually each of the guys did what (head) coach (Dan) Klatt had asked of them and then collectively as a team we were able to pull it off today."

Bobbitt was filling in for Klatt, who was attending a wedding.

Prairie Ridge's Filip Pajak won the race with a time of 15:02.5 Ralph Papa of Metea Valley finished second, clocking in at 15:06.4

"My plan was to position myself in first mile because I know the second mile is kind of a lock because it's all downhill," Pajak said. "Then I just try to gap myself from the field during the entire second mile."

Geneva took third place (94) in the team competition behind Josh Rodgers' third-place finish (15:13.6)

St. Charles East finished fourth (115) and Batavia captured fifth place (138).

Paced by Sophia McDonnell's first place, Geneva won the top spot in the girls race with 58 points. The sophomore won the race with a time 17:54.4 followed by teammate Emma Ehrhardt, who crossed the finish line in 17:56.2.

Lyons took second place (65) led by sophomore Sarah Barcelona's third place finish (17:58.6)

Geneva freshman Andrine Larsen (18:07.8) passed Lyon's harrier Emily Hankel (18:09.1) just before the finish line to take fourth place.

"They did awesome today - it is nice when you have three up front like that. Their goal has been to be 10 seconds apart or less and they accomplished that today," said Geneva coach Bob Thomson. "We also had Taryn Christ and Ebony Trout back this week so they were our number 4 and 5. They didn't run last week so it was nice to have them back and they did a nice job of filling out our top five."

"We (McDonnell, Ehrhardt and Larsen) took the lead and we just want to stay nice and even in the first mile," McDonnell said. "Then we just stuck together and pushed each other for the rest of the race."

Metea Valley came in third (75) followed by Batavia (99) and Hinsdale Central (101).