By Michael Newman

DyeStat IL Editor

[email protected]

St. Charles --- If the Boys Varsity race Saturday morning at Leroy Oakes Forest Preserve is any indication how this season will go for the Downers Grove North’s Boys Cross Country team, it could be an exciting time at Detweiller Park for this squad. Coach John Sipple was all smiles after he saw his 3A #7 team in the state put seven runners in the first eleven to easily win the team championship with 26 points. “We have all of our runners coming back from last season. The goal today was to pack it up and see how well we did,” Sipple said after the race. “I think we did pretty well.”

“All summer we have been stressing the team performance,” Downers Grove North runner Alec Danner said. “Guys have progressed so much. We have potentially four or five guys potentially that could be under 15 minutes by the time we get to November.”

Their pack was evident in the first mile of the race. Danner went out front to take the lead going through the first mile in 4:58. Seven to eight seconds back came a cloud of the purple clad DGN runners. Coaches commented the race was over at that point.

Danner had a 4 to 5 second lead on the pack led by Geneva’s Tyler Dau in that first mile. It appeared that this would be Danner’s race. In the final kilometer, Danner started to struggle at the “Reality Check” hill. That was the opening that Dau was looking for as he made up ground. Following closely was Marmion Academy’s Charlie Zimmer who saw the opportunity as well. With about 250 meters to go, Dau, then Zimmer caught passed Danner. The two runners than focused on who would cross the line first. Dau, who was all-state last spring in the 1600 Meter Run, made one final surge in the last twenty meters to just edge Zimmer by half a second (15:32.8 – 15:33.3).

“I knew he (Danner) was going to go out fast. I just wanted to stay behind but not too far behind. I wanted to stay in striking distance,” Dau said. “He started slowing down on the last hill. I didn’t catch him until 200 to 300 to go. I usually don’t hear anybody during a race. I did hear my coach tell me to go. I thought I could do it and just went.”

Danner finished third less than two seconds behind Dau and Zimmer (15:35.1). Then the North pack came in ten seconds behind their #1 runner. Ryan Birkmeier was next in fourth, followed by Jacob Ridderhoff and Nick Chudzik. Geneva’s Josh Rodgers broke up the pack in seventh. North’s Andrew Marek finished eighth. The split on their first five runners was only 17.7 seconds.

3A #16 Geneva finished second (99 points) by six points ahead of 3A #20 Marmion Academy. 3A #15 St. Charles East, who had a 32 second split on their top five, finished fourth with 118 points.

The finish of the Girls Varsity race was the exact opposite of that of the Boys race. Barrington’s Jocelyn Long pulled away from Audrey Ernst (St. Charles North HS) just after the first mile then pulled away. She crossed the line in 17:26 for the win. Ernst finished 38 seconds back in second (18:04.2). The gap was another 37 seconds before Geneva’s Emma Ehrhardt crossed the line in third. The margin of those first three runners was evidence of how impressively that the Barrington junior had run.

“During the first mile, I knew I just had to have a good pace and be consistent. I did not want to go out too fast. I knew that would help me out later in the race,” Long said. “I honestly felt great in the woods. There were no spectators there. I was just playing games in my head trying to do little surges.”

Upstate Eight rivals 3A #5 Batavia and 3A #8 Geneva battled it out for the team championship in this race. For this day, the edge went to Geneva as they scored 58 points for the win. The Vikings had three runners in the top ten as Sophia McDonnell (7^th) and Taryn Christy (10^th) followed Ehrhardt. Their split on their top 5 was 79 seconds. If you put in Frosh/Soph race winner Andrine Larsen who ran 19:08 for the win, that split dips down to 57 seconds.

Batavia, who was without all-state runner Emma Stephens, was second in the team race with 64 points. The Broncos had 2 runners in the top ten with Marygrace Golden (6^th) and Audrey Pellico (8^th). Their split on their top five was only 35 seconds including two freshman in the group (Pellico and Mia Giafrancesco). Unranked York was next with 80 points led by the fourth place finish by Sarah May.

Results