Crystal Lake Central takes advantage, wins Harland
Antioch's Pat Harland Invitational was going just as expected during the boys cross country race Saturday morning until the unexpected happened late in the 3-mile race at Fox River Park.
One wrong turn toward the latter part of the 13-team meet led to the first six finishers being disqualified. That allowed Crystal Lake Central to walk away with the title with 53 points, followed by Burlington Central (81 points) in second and Elgin (98 points) in third.
The host Sequoits placed fifth with 137 points, outdistancing Warren (183) in sixth, Grayslake North (184) in seventh and Grayslake Central (191) in eighth.
Running on the hilly course in southern Wisconsin for the first time, Crystal Lake South senior Jack Becker appeared to win the race in 15:33. Antioch sophomore Charlie Smith crossed the finish line in third place.
But much to the dismay of Becker, Smith and four other runners, they found out that they had gone off the course with about three quarters of a mile to go.
The word after the meet was that there was not a yellow flag at the point of the course where the runners should have turned right. They went straight, instead.
“It's the first time we've been to this course, but I got a good workout out of it,” said Becker, who is undefeated in all of his other meets this fall and one of the top three runners in the state in Class 2A. “I wasn't the only one to do it, but we all put in a good effort.”
The Gators took a hit from the miscue in the scoring, as they slid to 13th with 217 points. Ryan Foster placed 19th for CLS, while teammate Matt Brown placed 26th.
“I was told that there was no real yellow flag to tell you to turn right, but (Becker) said he kind of paused and slowed down, and no one told him to turn back,” Crystal Lake South coach Rich Eschman said. “I'm not sure why the rest of the guys did it, especially the Antioch guy, since this is his home course.”
Elgin was led by freshman Emmanuel Lopez in fourth place and Juan Villagomez in 12th place. The Maroons also got a 22nd-place run from Enrique Delgado and a 27th from Cameron Fischer.
“The top two ran strong for a hilly course, and the top five had a 55-second spread, which is good for us,” said Elgin coach Drew Smith. “Manny Lopez is running really well right now. He's a freshman and we're hoping to get him downstate.”
Antioch had a solid team effort with Eric Hart in 20th, Mike Volkmar in 21st, Joe Sculuca in 30th and Alex Besson in 31st.
“It's unfortunate,” Antioch coach Chris Bailey said of the DQs. “It's disappointing it was one of our guys, but I think (Smith) got caught up with running with the leaders. We had a good pack, and our 2-through 5 were about 20 seconds within one another.”
Warren was led by freshman Collin Jones in third and Andrew Metcalf in 17th. Jones ran in his first varsity invite.
“I thought he handled it all really well,” Warren coach Bill Dawson said. “We're a little banged up so I'm pretty happy with their performance, and the cool weather is welcome to all of us.”
Grayslake North was without top runner Connor Riss due to injury. The Knights got a 14th-place finish from Brandt Batteau.
“Marcus Sandroni was all-conference last year so he's starting to round back into form,” Grayslake North coach Anthony DeStephano said. “He's steadily improving every week, but as a team we are still a work in progress.”
Grayslake Central was led by Luke Reblin in sixth place, but all-state teammate Eli Minsky (12th in 2016) had to drop out of the race after rolling his ankle about one and a quarter miles in.
“I like the way our younger guys ran,” Grayslake Central coach Jimmy Centella said. “Luke Reblin stepped up as our No. 1 guy, and Ty (Sato) has been our most consistent runner this year.”