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An Illinois Team sweep at the NXR Midwest Regionals

Published by
DyeStat.com   Nov 12th 2018, 1:16pm
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Ohio success even after Saturday State Meet; Hersey, Naperville North team champions; Hart and Hocker use final kicks for individual wins

By Michael Newman for DyeStat

[email protected] 

Terre Haute, Indiana – What was expected was the dominance showed by Illinois teams in both the boys and girls championship races Sunday afternoon at Lavern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course. What was not expected was that three individual Ohio runners qualified for the Nike Cross Nationals in three weeks at Portland, Oregon.

NXR MIDWEST RESULTS

Just 24 hours before this race, the three were running in the Ohio state cross country championships that were moved back one week due to bad course conditions.

Vincent Mauri of Howland, Ohio finished fourth in the boys championship after finishing fourth the day before in the OHSAA Division 1 Championships. Ryan Adams of Twinsburg, Ohio, second in the state race, finished sixth Sunday and also qualified for Nike Cross Nationals.

Running races in different states on consecutive days was not new for Taylor Ewert of Beavercreek, Ohio. In June, the junior won the New Balance National Championship in the 2,000-meter steeplechase in North Carolina. The next day, she was in Bloomington, Ind., setting a new American junior record in winning the 10,000-meter racewalk.

The same principles applied this weekend for Ewert. She won her first state championship Saturday afternoon by 26 seconds. Less than 24 hours later, she was in the girls championship race where she finished third, qualifying her for the December race in Portland.

“Once we found out that the state meet was moved on November 1, it was a little stressful. It was a big decision. It is hard when things are not going as planned,” Ewert said. “The goal was to figure out a plan as fast as possible, stick with that, and start getting mentally prepared to do what it takes.”

Ewert was in the front pack that included Illinois runners Katelynne Hart of Glenbard West and Alex Morris of Naperville North. The two runners pulled away from Ewert in the final kilometer. The Ohio state champion held her third-place position all the way to the finish.

“I knew that the last kilometer was going to be really tough,” Ewert added. “I knew I would be able to stay with them the first two miles. I knew the last mile was going to be hard, but I knew I would be able to hang in there.”

The race for the individual title came down to the final 400 meters between Hart and Morris. Hart, the three-time Illinois 3A State champion, pulled away in the final 150 meters to capture her third straight NXR Midwest Championship, running 17:14 for the win. Morris finished in 17:17.

Morris’ finish led five Naperville North runners in the top 40 to help capture the team title with 69 points. The pack of Campbell Petersen (27th) Claire Hill (29th), Maggie Gamboa (38th) and Audrey Mendys (40th) were separated by only 10 seconds.

“The focus for me today was to get as few points as possible for the team,” Morris said. “It was exciting. Everyone today ran so well. We were running for each other and the team members that could not run.”

Yorkville and Downers Grove South duplicated the second and third Illinois 3A State Meet finishes in this meet. Yorkville earned back-to-back Nike Cross National trips, finishing second with 84 points. The Lady Foxes placed four runners in the top 28 led by Kailey Fox and her 14th-place finish. Emily Eberhart (19th), Helena Kleronomos (21st), and Hailey Simmons (28th) followed. Sara Klemm (82nd) was the team’s fifth runner.

Downers Grove South will have to wait for a call from the Nike Selection Committee for an at-large bid in two weeks. The case is strong for a Portland trip after another impressive team performance. Brenna Cohoon again led her team in 18th overall. Melissa Weidner (43rd), Erin Reidy (57th), Rebecca Diddia (61st), and Kennedy Warden (64th) followed. The second through fifth runners were separated by only 17 seconds.

Indiana state champion Emma Wilson finished 14th in last year’s Nike Cross Nationals. She will be making a return trip to Portland by finishing fourth in this race. Illinois freshmen Katrina Schlenker of Batavia and Lianna Surtz of Rosary earned the other two individual qualifying spots, finishing fifth and sixth.

The boys championship race also came down to two runners racing to the line for the win. A move in the final 800 meters by Cole Hocker of Indianapolis Cathedral was the difference as he won the title (15:06) by six seconds ahead of Illinois 3A state champion Josh Methner of Hersey.

It was a race between the two runners after a 4:44 first mile on the soggy course. Methner started to push the pace at that point with Hocker the only runner willing to go with. It was the experience on this course from the Indiana State champion that was the difference. This was the fourth time this season that Hocker had raced at Lavern Gibson.

“Just two weeks ago, I ran the state meet here and it was muddy,” Hocker said. “Today it was soft, so I had a pretty good idea of what the course should feel like and how I should feel in certain parts of the course. I felt good at four kilometers and just had to close it from there.”

The top five team places in the boys championship race were captured by Illinois schools. The surge late in the season by Hersey continued with an exclamation point. The Huskies used Methner’s second-place finish along with an 11-second split from the second to fifth runners to win the team championship and a trip to Portland with 146 points. Illinois 3A State Champion Wheaton-Warrenville South took second (149 points).

“We had the same mindset in this race as we did at state,” Methner said. “We just wanted to finish as high as we could.”

It was the pack that gave the Huskies the win led by the 50th- and 51st-place finishes from Max Svienty and Ryan Buch. Thomas McCarthy (75th) and Colin Safford (82nd) finished out the scoring for Hersey.

The second-place finish from Wheaton-Warrenville South could have been a wake-up call for the team after the state win a week ago. 

“We had trained all season for the state race,” Scott Maison said. “Today’s race seemed to be anticlimactic. Winning last week was our main goal all season so we are happy with that.”

The Tigers had three runners in the top 29 led by the 14th-place finish from William Hauenstein. Scott Maison (24th) and Jacob Kluckhohn (29th) were the team’s second and third runners. Injuries and illness have hit this team at the end of the season. The team had a 44-second split on the top five with Jared Peaslee (106th) and Ethan Seng (108th) as the team’s fourth and fifth runners.

York was not expected to be in this position at the beginning of the season with only one runner with state meet experience and running four juniors and three sophomores. The Dukes, like Hersey, are running strong at the end of the season when it counts. They made a strong case for an at-large Nike Cross Nationals bid by finishing third with 156 points, just seven points behind the Illinois state champions.

Ethan Kern knows he will be running in Portland after he finished fifth individually to capture one of the individual qualifying spots. Kern was 13th in the race with a kilometer to go. Colin Hill (45th), Daniel Klysh (47th), Michael Moriarty (73rd), and Brian Pratt (112nd) were the team’s other scorers. The second through fifth runners were separated by 22 seconds.

Neuqua Valley finished off a great season by finishing fourth (162 points), led by Michael Madiol and Chris Keeley finishing 25th and 27th.

Hocker, Mauri, Kern, and Adams were four of the individual qualifiers. Corey Gorgas of Saugatuck was Michigan’s Division 4 (smallest class) state champion. The senior had a great race finishing third overall, qualifying him for NXN. If York is selected as an at-large qualifying team, Tyler Cushing of Bolingbrook, Ill., who finished seventh individually, will be added as an individual qualifier. 

Photo – Katelynne Hart wins her third straight NXR Midwest Title (Photo Credit © 2018 Laura Duffy for DyeStat)

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