Boys cross country: MSL shaping up to be strong again
How legit has Mid-Suburban boys cross country been over the last 11 years?
Seven of the conference's 12 teams have made at least one appearance in the Class 3A state finals meet in Peoria during that span with Hersey, Barrington, Palatine and Prospect qualifying frequently.
Taking each MSL state-qualifying team's Detweiler Park finishes and adding them together and dividing them by total of state finals appearances since 2010 and it shakes out to Palatine (9.2 average place finish for 5 appearances), Hersey (10.3 for 7 appearances) and Barrington (11.0 for 6 appearances) leading the way. In seven of the last 10 state finals meets, at least two MSL boys teams have finished in the top 20. Of course, the 2011 meet saw four MSLs crack the Detweiler Top 8.
What will 2021 bring? Let's start in the East where Hersey went 6-0, finished second overall in the MSL and would have qualified for Peoria after a fourth-place sectional showing.
Four-year seniors Connor Oiler, Sean Safford, Luke Altmayer, Johnny Lifka and Michael Renner will be counted on. Safford, Oiler and Lifka competed in the sectional last season.
"Our four-year seniors are definitely going to be setting the tone," Huskies coach Kevin Young said. "Your top athletes need to be the most committed and determined athletes, otherwise we are going to have a tough year. Thus far, that group is answering the bell, and there's no doubt they will continue to leave their mark on our tradition."
Prospect was third overall in the MSL and qualified for a sectional in 2020. Senior TJ Garland battled illness, but came back to clock 4:31 in the 1,600 this spring. Senior all-MSL performer Sean Kura was fourth in the conference in the 3,200 (PR 9:49), while junior all-MSL pick Luka Kuzmanovic will help as well. "We'd love to win back an MSL East title from Hersey and we want to win the MSL conference meet and qualify for state as a team," Knights coach Jay Renaud said.
Buffalo Grove, sixth in the MSL, is led by junior Tyler Lieu and seniors Spencer Sadler and Albert Szwczyk. Rolling Meadows graduated MSL champion Stephen Barreto, but will get production from sophomore Diego Buenrostro and senior Elijah Perry. Miguel Granados, Kevin Roman (first-year HS cross country runner) and sophomore Jake Ning lead Wheeling.
In the West, Barrington is the defending overall MSL champion and finished fifth at the Shazam de facto state meet last fall with a senior-laden team. Now, it's seniors Joey Furlong, Ryan Fryer and Zack Daniel leading the way for coach Tom Root's crew.
Palatine was runner-up in the West and fourth overall a year ago. Junior Jack Casaccio was an individual sectional qualifier as a 10th grader. Coach Joe Parks is high on a deep roster that could produce many scoring runners with Casaccio, junior Mason Kreig and senior Mukal Verma asserting themselves as front-runners over the summer, plus junior Andrew Jordan has shown high potential.
Hoffman Estates was fifth in the MSL and welcomes back Preetpaul Singh and Jerry Jimenez from its sectional-qualifying team a year ago. Freshman Brady Faulkner also has impressed.
Conant's top runners include senior Andy Davidson, junior Vijay Krishnamoorthi and sophomore Gaven Corpin.
All-MSL runner Theo Cunningham, senior Michael Labno and sophomore Thomas Border headline Fremd's contingent.
Seniors Macros Jaimes and Matt Trybus, along with juniors Christian Haywood and Owen Wahlen are core runners for Schaumburg.
Maine South was Central Suburban runner-up last fall and would have qualified for the Class 3A state meet. Juniors Joey Karlesky, Luke Pravecek, Luca Arcuri and Will Huddleston have coach Greg Nordahl eying five runners potentially going under 15:30 by season's end.
Maine West, third in the CSL, returns senior Andrew Stuheit as its lone Top 7 runner back from a year ago.