Hinsdale Central runs away with Boys team title behind Watcke win

Parekh takes lead early for easy Girls win, Minooka edges Prospect for Girls team title

By Michael Newman

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Hinsdale – Katherine Legge Memorial Park in Hinsdale is a home away from home for Hinsdale Central’s Daniel Watcke. He knows every hill. He knows where the right point is to make his move. It was the moves that he did not make that were the difference in his win Saturday morning for the return of the Hornet-Red Devil Invitational.

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Watcke picked up his first major invitational win by being patient with his running and making the move up hill in the final 100-meters of the race and using a little bit of his speed that he made famous on the track in the spring. His winning time of 15:00 was just one second ahead of Oswego East’s Parker Nold. It was another two seconds before Nold’s teammate Alexander Das finished in third. Mason Krieg of Palatine was another second back in fourth. Michael Atkins of Wheaton-Warrenville South edged Gabe Ryan for fifth. Both were timed at 15:12.

This was not a race for the faint of heart. Watcke led this pack through the first mile of the race in 5:03. On the second circuit of this rolling course, Watcke, Das, Nold, and Krieg pulled away from the rest of the field. There were places and moments where you thought a move could be. It was a game of chess where out of this pack of four, each runner was trying to guess who would go first.

That put Watcke’s move at the end the close of this game. Checkmate.

“Coach (Noah) Lawrence told us since this was a new course, we did not know how fast it would go. This meet usually wins in the high 14’s, low 15’s. I was expecting some kind of time like that,” said Watcke. “This is a true cross-country course. I like the hills. I tried to take advantage of that today.”

#10 Hinsdale Central were the “rude” hosts in this premiere race in this state on this weekend. Watcke’s win, along with placing 6 runners in the first 20 gave their team the win with 62 points. The Red Devils only had a 16 second split on their second through six runners in this race behind Watcke’s win. Their top five split was 44 seconds. Grant Miller led the Hinsdale Central pack finishing 11th. Jesse Gamboa (15th), Aden Bandukwala (16th), Colby Revord (19th), and Abhinav Reddy (20th) followed.

#7 New Trier finished second (109 points) even though their #1 runner Nick Falk did not compete in this meet. The Trevians displayed some great pack running placing their scorers between 10th and 28th with only a 22 second split. Patrick Jamieson was the team’s runner placing 10th. George Cahill (18th) followed by Oscar Dueno-Alda (26th), Blake Deger (27th), and Gabe Nosek (28th) all coming in together. The split between Cahill and Nosek was only 13 seconds.

#17 Neuqua Valley had a 57 second split on their top five runners finishing third (137 points) behind the eighth-place finish from Noah Schalliol. Palatine placed fourth (150 points) behind Krieg’s finish in fourth. #30 Wheaton-Warrenville South finished fifth (157 points).

There was no doubt that Ava Parekh of Latin School would win this race especially after she took the lead in the race in the first 400-meters. She never looked back and was in control as she ran a fast 17:08 on this new circuit at KLM to claim the win.

“It was definitely a different start than past years,” Parekh said describing the new start for this course. “It was nice to be back on a big starting line. It was nice to be back in a normal felling race.”

Audrey Alman of Glenbard West was pinched at the first turn of the race and had moved up to sixth by the end of the first mile. She kept on moving in the second half of the race as she placed second (17:40). Catie McCabe of Hinsdale Central finished third (17:55) with Hailey Erickson (17:56) of Prospect and Beatrix Gibson of New Trier (17:57) rounding out the top five.

The finish of the Girls team race was snug as #5 Minooka edged #4 Prospect 102 to 106 for the team title. Minooka did this without their #1 runner Jocelyn Host who had to drop out in the final half mile of the race. Gabriella McCollum stepped up to finish 8th overall to lead Minooka. Gabrielle Kics (13th), Audrey Boles (22nd), Cassie Fuhrman (27th), and Kathryn Cichon (37th) rounded out the top five for the Indians. Their top five split was 89 seconds. Their split from Kics to Cichon was 69 seconds.

Prospect used top 10 finishes from Erickson and Cameron Kalaway (9th) to helped them to stay close to Minooka. Audrey Ginsberg (16th), Samantha Patterson (38th), and Sophia Anast (44th) rounded out Prospect’s top five. Lily Ginsberg’s time in the Frosh/Soph race (18:16) would put her as the second runner for her team in the Varsity race.

#26 Naperville Central finished third (117 points) led by the sixth-place finish from Liv Phillips. #21 New Trier (126 points) and #27 Glenbard West (126 points) rounded out the top five teams.

A sub plot in this meet was the Girls Sophomore race where the top five finishers all would have finished in the top 20 of the Girls Varsity race. The story of this competition was the high school debut of Mia Kotler of Latin School who had never run a 3-mile cross-country race before. It did not seem like that as she pulled away from the rest of the field. Kotler’s time of 17:40 would have finished third in the Varsity race.

“This is a pretty hilly course especially for Illinois,” Kotler said after her race. “Ava (Parekh) told me to roll with the downhills and recovering.  It will feel like you were not wasting any energy. There were a few long hills here that all you can do is put your head down and grind them out.”

Three freshmen were among the top six finishers. Isabella Marsico of Lake Forest ran 17:55 to finish second. Abigail Jordan of Palatine made her debut finishing third (18:11) followed by Prospect’s Lily Ginsberg (18:16). Nicole Poglitsch of Wheaton-Warrenville South (18:29) edged Lake Forest’s Sophia Lane for sixth by one second. All these runners will be running up on their varsity teams sooner than later.

Henry O’Malley of Evanston Township built up a big lead in the Boys sophomore race heading to the final 800 of the race. With a little more than 400 meters left, O’Malley accidentally made a wrong turn taking himself off the course. He was put back in the right direction and was able to win (16:29) ahead of Prospect’s Michael Piagari (16:36) and Naperville North’s Luke Donaldson (16:41).