What a Saturday at Kaneland! Our girls went into the race ranked third in the Regional and ran some of their best races of the year to qualify for the Sectional at Fenton this Saturday. If the team finishes in the top seven at Fenton, it will mean a trip to State!
Charlotte continued her great string of races with the team’s only All-Regional finish in 4th place. Her time of 19:17 was a lifetime P.R. and the fastest time anyone on the team has run this season. Abby also had a great race and ran a season P.R. with a time of 19:39 to finish in 10th place. Elena took the last pumpkin place finishing in 20th place with a time of 20:38. Yuliya and Victoria both ran season P.R.’s (20:38 and 20:59, respectively) and finished in 23rd and 32nd. Annabella had another lifetime P.R. of 21:27, finishing in 41st place and Olivia ran 23:16 to finish in 67th.
The team race was close between us and Kaneland with Hinsdale taking third place with a score of 89 points to Kaneland’s 92. Abby and Victoria both beat two of Kaneland’s runners by less than five seconds. Had Abby and Victoria been beaten by those runners (or if anyone else dropped a place or two), Kaneland would have passed us up. The girls ran great and just need a repeat (or better) performance this weekend to secure a trip to Peoria.
Saturday, October 16th
What an incredible conference meet. Although we didn’t have enough to score on the freshman, sophomore or JV levels, all of our freshmen and sophomores had P.R.s today! Andy and Sam both broke their goal times setting new all-time records of 26:03 and 27:20 in the freshman race. This was Sam Kantz’s first full 3-mile race and she absolutely crushed it! As her coaches, we were hoping she’d break 30 minutes based on what she has been doing in practice, but she ran with such conviction. We couldn’t be more proud!
In the sophomore race Annabella and Aly also set new all-time records for themselves with times of 22:38 and 24:18 respectively. Annabella’s time secures her spot racing at Regionals next weekend.
In the Varsity race we had 5 all-conference athletes (Charlotte-9th, Elena-10th, Abby-11th, Yuliya-16th, and Victoria-15th) and placed second overall in conference. Racing the way these girls did truly takes hard work, dedication, and support/push from your teammates. They continually close the gaps in their times and work together to race better as a team. Elena (20:21), Charlotte (19:46), Yuliya (21:07), Victoria (21:03) AND Ava (23:00) all had season P.R.s with an all-time PR by Charlotte. Coach Miller and I are so proud of all of our athletes and couldn’t be more grateful for such a fantastic group to coach. We are looking forward to seeing how they perform at regionals!
Saturday, October 2nd
The Pat Savage Invite at Niles West in Skokie was our first invitational since the Richard Spring Invite at Peoria two weeks ago. Most of the team ran season personal records at Peoria, which is where the State meet is held, and given that it is a much faster course than the course at Niles West we didn’t expect to see a lot of P.R.’s today. What we did see were a bunch of girls who ran their hearts out and are priming for the post-season that starts in two weeks with Conference.
The day started with our AAA team. Aly, Andy, and Annabella ran at 9:30 before the weather really started to heat up. Andy Esposito, who was running a three mile race for only the fourth time, ended up running a 27:52 (81st place), which wasn’t far from her Richard Spring P.R. of 27:34. Aly Motherway ran a time of 26:07 which was good enough for 62nd place. Annabella Ramirez, who has been getting stronger all season, ended up being one of the few girls to P.R. Annabella ran 23:32 to finish in 30th place.
The varsity race saw the Hornet matched up against Fenwick, which is a team we will see in the postseason. Finishing in ninth place, the girls comfortably beat Fenwick, and would have beaten fellow Regional team St. Laurence had they run a full varsity team (most of their runners were in the freshman/sophomore race). While most of Fenwick's top runners were running at a different meet, we still would have matched up well and most likely beaten them. Abby Peterson led the way for the girls as usual. She started with a 6:45 first mile and then ran two consistent miles to finish the race in 20:47 in 27th place. Elena Garcia, Charlotte Old, and Yuliya Drabchuk worked together for most of the race with Charlotte finishing in 43rd place with a time of 21:15, Elena finishing in 45th place with a time of 21:22, and Yuliya finished in 53rd place with a P.R. of 21:34. Had Charlotte and Yuliya run in the freshman/sophomore race, both would have received medals. Victoria Cius was the team’s fifth runner and finished in 67th place, just missing a P.R. with her time of 22:07. Olivia Rogers, Ava Berg, and Grace Kosiol rounded out the team finishing with times of 22:37, 23:47, and 29:34, respectively.
Saturday, September 18th
Peoria didn’t disappoint! 11 Personal season bests, 4 of which were lifetime PRs! Abby Petersen meet her goal of breaking 20 today, Ava Berg almost broke 24 minutes which is over a minute PR this season. Olivia Rogers had an incredibly strong race running almost the same 2 mile and 3 mile splits of 7:44 and 7:41… we’ve been working hard on her second mile and she definitely pushed herself to stay strong through it today. Charlotte Old and Elena Garcia ran in a nice duo and both ended up breaking into the 20s. Probably the most remarkable race was had by Aly Motherway who had a HUGE lifetime PR of 24:54!! We’re looking forward to a solid two weeks of hard training to prep us for the back half of our season 😄
Monday, September 13th
Today the team generally set out to do a tempo workout in our meet as we are coming off heavier mileage last week and a hard race Saturday. Despite missing 6 athletes due to injuries or a common cold, we still ran a nice workout race! Abby and Victoria took the lead with Abby being instructed to help pace Victoria- helping her to work on hitting her goal race times. Then Charlotte took on our second pack with yuliya helping to pace her and Kate attempting her first race back post a hamstring injury. Unfortunately and fortunately, she was smart and decided to pull out of the race early as it started irritating her early on. Though she did do some mental sabotage against Addison Trail before she dropped out! Olivia, Grace, and Annabella all did a great job of hitting just below their goal times for three miles. Zoe, Aly and Andy wrapped up with a short two miles- all of which were MUCH faster paced than set out, but they felt good so we have aspirations for some future fast three miles! Andy finished her first ever 2 mile race in under a 10 minute mile pace… beyond exciting for a first time runner! 😃
Monday, August 30th A great way to start off the 2021 season! In our tri-meet verse WB and Morton the Varsity team took 2nd place to Morton (31-25) and 1st place against Willowbrook (23-32). All athletes well outperformed their “paced” times set out for them prior to the race. Most notable performances were those who managed to be extremely consistent throughout the race today with the following 1 mile and 2 mile splits: Elena Garcia: 7:00, 7:06 Charlotte Old: 7:00, 7:06 and Victoria Cius: 7:35, 7:37
Despite missing two key Varsity athletes, the girls did a great job of finding their packs and running together to perform as well as they did.
On the JV level, we did not have enough athletes to score, but Sophomore Annabella Ramirez had an incredible first ever race with a time that was a minute per mile faster than her time trial!
We are so excited for this season, and are still welcoming new runners!