Saturday, November 9th - IHSA State Meet At the state meet the girls finally had a chance to run in nice weather and on a true 3 mile course. Freshman Abby Petersen led the group with an incredible 18:29 finish - a minute better than the last time she raced this course and an 18 second PR for the season. Freshman Elena Garcia raced with incredible tenacity, breaking 20 minutes (19:40 finish) and setting her own personal record by 26 seconds. Sophomore Olivia Rogers went out hard in the first mile and held on as long as she could bringing herself to a similar time as her regional meet which was .04 shy of 3 miles! Unofficially that’s about a 10-15 second lifetime PR of 21:18. Sophomore Victoria Cius and Freshman Ava Berg ran with a “pack mentality” pushing one another all the way through the race to continue improving. Both girls accomplished season PR’s and placed within the top 200 in the state with times of 21:05 and 21:08 respectively. Ava’s time was an impressive 40 second PR from the regional meet (which was shy of 3 miles). Kate Haffner rounded off our group- despite dealing with injuries that prevented her from running the full season, she battled through the pain to compete AND finish her very first state meet. Her positive attitude in the post season leading up to the race truly pumped up the rest of our team and her efforts were well worth it. All of these ladies deserve a bit of rest and some hot chocolate after today!
Friday, October 11th - Breman Invite Well that was a fun meet! Our girls competed really well in the thick of the mud and puddles. Today is what cross country is all about- getting out there and racing against other athletes all dealing with the same weather and course conditions. Athlete of the week goes to Abby Petersen winning the race in a grueling last mile duel! Other athletes who stepped it up this week are Elena Garcia placing 7th overall, Ava Berg, Caroline Munkhdelger and Sierra Carder stepping up to place 3rd - 5th for our team respectively. No PR’s today but given the swamp we were running through that’s to be expected. A great effort by all and certainly a race to remember for years to come 😃
Saturday, October 5th - Niles West Invite Niles West was a tough race today for all competitors out there. Bloody noses, muddy wipeouts and spiked up legs are just a few of the difficulties racers had to deal with today! Despite course conditions our girls competed extremely well bringing home 5th place overall on the Varsity level. This meet is great because we get to compare ourselves to other 2A schools and our girls REALLY stepped it up. Most outstanding performance this week goes to Sophomores Olivia Rogers and Victoria Cius who both had over 30 second PRs despite the mud lot they were running through. Both of these girls have had a hard time comparing their times to last season and not seeing the results they want, today was a much deserved break through for them. Olivia ran a few seconds faster than last year on a much more beat up course (not to mention the fact that there were more runners on the course making the tight turns even more difficult to navigate). Victoria ran a 1:16 season PR bringing her up to our 5th varsity position and immensely helping us take home that 5th place standing. We are so proud of all of these girls and can’t wait to see what they do at conference in a couple weeks!
Monday, September 23rd - vs. Leyden & Willowbrook Outstanding performances by Elena garcia taking 3rd overall and Kate Haffner taking 5th. Both Kate and Elena ran course PRs for the season. Freshman Ava Berg and Senior Sierra Carder both responded in the last mile to take 4th and 5th for our team, helping to close the gap by passing multiple athletes. An impressive performance by both of them, with a full healthy team we look forward to challenging these teams at conference.
Saturday, September 21st - Peoria Notre Dame Invite The girls worked hard this week and their efforts truly showed off at the Peoria Notre Dame invitational! Six of our eight competitors PR’d by greater than 40 seconds. outstanding performances in the fresh-soph level: Abby Petersen leading our girls with a time of 19:27 and finishing 12th overall. Elena Garcia running over a minute PR almost reaching her season goal of breaking 21 minutes! Sophomore Kate Haffner running the race with a fellow athlete from St. Ignatius and easily managing a 2 minute PR. Teamwork from our JV girls worked to our Juniors advantage. Caroline Munkhdelger and Olivia Dire ran together for almost the first two miles and impressively completed their first 3 mile race this season with paces that were similar to their 2 mile pace. The last race day PR came from Senior Zofia Oles who kept a positive attitude all morning despite having a rough start to the season. Her 2 minute PR was the perfect transition for the rest of her season!