Cross country: Prospect takes both boys, girls regional titles
It took a photo finish to determine the winner Saturday of the Class 3A boys regional cross country title Saturday in Hoffman Estates.
When the final picture became clear, Evanston's Essay Tolosa edged Rolling Meadows' Stephen Barretto by one-one hundredths of a second. Tolosa finished in 15:24.55 while Barretto was in at 15:24.56.
"I just tried pulling away on that corner," Barretto said. "I am not the best sprinter. I tried using my length and dive for the finish but I was a little short."
It was a huge day for runners from Prospect's girls and boys teams.
The Knights got a clean sweep from both as each easily won regional titles. The Prospect teams advance to next Saturday's at Hoffman Estates.
The Prospect girls team nearly ran the table. The Knights captured the top four spots and finished with 20 points.
Prospect's Hailey Erickson was the regional champ with a time of 18:59.00. She finished just ahead of teammate Audrey Ginsberg, who was second in 19:07.82
It was not best time," Ericksons said. "But for the strategy we were doing it was pretty good. "
Ginsberg ran with Erickson in the first flight. The two were together for most of the race.
"Our goal was to run to run the race as close together as we could," said Erickson, who is sophomore. "We do that in practice and we did that today."
Cameron Kallaway, who was third in 19:17.12 and Annika Erickson, who was fourth overall in 19:23.09, employed the same strategy in the second flight for the Knights. Elena Barbaric (20:01.48), who ran in the third flight, was Prospect's fifth runner and finished 10th overall.
Glenbrook South was second with 53 points. The Titans were led by Molly Durow (19:24.72), who was fifth overall and Maggie Jortberg (19:29.11), who was sixth.
Hoffman Estates' Val Daniels (19:32.29) was seventh and Schaumburg's Ashlee Jenks (19:40.66) was eighth.
Evanston was third with 103 points while Schaumburg and Rolling Meadows tied for fourth with 131 points. The top five teams and top five runners not on qualifying teams advance to next week's sectional.
The Prospect boys team used a balanced performance to win the sectional title with 54 points.
Jack Dechoudens' sixth-place finish in 16:08.72 helped spark the Knights to the regional title.
"I ran hard today," Dechoudens said. "I think the rest of us did real well today."
Prospect had five of the top 16 runners in the regional. Luka Kuzmanovic (16:11.46) was ninth, Nic Squillacioti was 11th, Sean Kura 12th and TJ Garland 16th for the Knights.
Maine West placed three runners in the top eight as the Warriors took second in the regional with 75 points. Jesus Vallejo (15:59.31) was fourth with Adam Gorcyca (16:04) fifth and Joey Langridge (16:10.54) eighth.
Glenbrook South's Brian Hiltebrand finished third in 15:45.06 and Michael Jerva, who was 17th, helped lead the Titans to a fourth-place finish with 89 points.
"It was a lot of fun, " Hiltebrand said. "I knew it was going to be fast, so I tried to hang on."
Hoffman Estates finished with 92 points and was paced by Ken Winston (16:09.64), who was seventh and Getsamani Aguirre, who finished 14th.