Girls track and field: Lake Zurich claims County crown

Running alongside the Lake Zurich High School campus is a freight train route that delivers various items ranging from supplies to metals.

Which serves as a perfect metaphor to describe the girls track and field season as Thursday night's Lake County Invitational at Lake Zurich served as one of the final tuneups prior to next week's conference championships and sectional meets that begin in just two weeks time.

It was something that hasn't been lost on the coach of the meet's host school Jeremy Kauffman when he spoke of how fast the season goes downhill on that same track after his team's first-place effort at the Buffalo Grove Invite just three weeks before.

"We're trying to build a good meet team and have the events covered with high quality (efforts)," Kauffman said.

"Our goal is to have another great representation at sectionals, win our fifth straight (North Suburban) conference championships, win our second straight sectional (title) in school history and we would like to be a Top 10 team at state."

Thanks to another good meet performance, Kauffman's crew can add a County title to their growing collection as it successfully defended the Mel Eide Field home track leading the 19-team field with 139 points, 61 more than second-place finisher Lakes (78).

Warren (60), Zion-Benton (59) and Lake Forest (54), rounded out the top five.

"It's not about individual (results), but how everyone's doing (and) supporting each other," Lake Zurich junior Baelyn Zitzman said after her runner-up finish to Grayslake Central senior Catherine Guckenberger in the 200 meter dash.

Zitzmann's effort was the sixth silver medal showing in the meet as the Bears had a combined total of 10 first and second place finishes.

LZ won a pair of relay titles in the 400 (49.27 seconds) and 800 relays (1:45.55) plus a top finish by Zitzmann (5'07.75) in the high jump and fellow Bear junior Olivia Verden's personal record performance (15.46 seconds) in the 100 meter hurdles - which Verden modestly celebrated.

"It's exciting and I'm really glad (that) I'm dropping time. I just hope I keep dropping time," she said.

The Eagles' second-place performance featured field wins by junior Jillian Ellenwood (17'00) in the long jump and senior Joycelyn Crum (10'11) in the pole vault.

Senior runner Mia Pasha's win in the 3,200 meters (11:00) paced Warren's bronze medal team showing.

Guckenberger added the 100 meter dash title (12.38) to her 200 victory to earn the unofficial title of the fastest woman in Lake County.

Meanwhile, Zitzmann and her Lake Zurich teammates are refocusing on next week's NSC meet.

"We got to keep it going (and) show humility," Zitzmann said. "Just because we won today doesn't guarantee we'll do well in the future, so we've got to do our best and try our hardest."