Naperville North leads Illinois Girls Teams at Roy Griak Invitational

Friday Wrap Up – Hot race by Phillips in win at Naperville Girls Invitational

By Michael Newman

Julie Piot finished 14th overall to finish as the top Illinois runner and to help lead Naperville North to a fourth-place team finish in the Girls Championship race at Friday afternoon’s Roy Griak Invitational held at the University of Minnesota’s Les Bolstad Golf Course in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

Results

#5 Naperville North was the highest school from Illinois scoring 278 points to finish 4th overall. #17 Yorkville scored 342 points to finish 7th. #11 Batavia (14th – 429 points) and Rockton Hononegah (29th – 710 points) were the other teams from Illinois that were in the race. 40 teams were scored.

Ella Hagen of Frisco Summit CO ran the 10th fastest time in meet history of 17:55.7 to win the individual title. The junior took the lead with less than a mile to go from Libby Castelli of O’Gorman SD to win by eight seconds. Castelli’s time was 18:03.9. Wayzata MN made a strong move in the final mile of the race to move from third-place to repeating as the meet champions scoring 118 points to finish ahead of Johnston IA (147 points) and Brandon Valley SD (183 points).

Naperville North started out under control on the hilly course for the first mile of the race as they were in seventh behind Yorkville who went out fast and was in third. The key for the Huskies in this race is how their pack behind front runners Piot and Shania Tandon moved during the race. Naperville North was fifth at 3000-meters according to PT Timing. They moved to fourth in the final mile to secure fourth-place.

Piot was 13th at the mile and maintained that position throughout the race finishing 14th with a 19:14.0 time. Shania Tandon moved up six positions to finish 29th timed at 19:48.1 time. There was a 61 second split before the rest of their scorers came across the line. They gained positions in that final mile. Brynn Pfeiffer moved up 27 places to run 20:49.8 to finish 92nd. Anika Lovisa moved up 40 places to run 20:53.1 to finish 103. Sennah Rashidian moved 14 places to finish 107th with a 20:55.8 time. The team’s top five split was 101 seconds and just six seconds from Pfeiffer to Rashidian.

Yorkville’s fast start may have taken effect in the final mile, but the Lady Foxes still stayed within the top 10 teams. Sophia Keller led the team running 19:52 to finish 33rd. Annabelle Reeder finished 56th (20:22.6) and Ashley Schraeder finished 60th (20:24.4) as Yorkville’s second and third runners. Allegra Triner in 115th (21:04.5) and Lilliana Camargo in 156th (21:29) were the team’s fourth and fifth runners.

Batavia’s 14th place finish was led by freshmen Gwendolyn Krodel running 20:23 to finish 58th and Avery Hacker running 20:46.3 to finish 86th. Allyson Niedfeldt ran 20:10.2 moving up 17 spots in the final mile to finish 46th overall to lead Hononegah.

Yorkville finished 21st with 539 points in the Boys Championship race. The Foxes were led by finishes from Owen Horeni running 16:39.1 to finish 40th and Jake Younger running 17:00.8 to finish 74th. Stevens Point WI scored 156 points to win the Boys team title finishing ahead of Dowling Catholic IA (202 points) and Northville MI (204 points). Clay Shively of Trinity Academy KS moved up seven spots in the final mile to run 15:23.9 to claim the individual race title winning by less than two seconds ahead of Sam Scott of Minneapolis Southwest (15:25.7).

Naperville Girls Invitational - Results

This Friday afternoon meet included eight ranked teams in this small 10 team field. Liv Phillips of Naperville Central pulled away early in the Varsity race on the rugged Northwestern Medicine XC Course in Geneva to run 17:38 to win by 33 seconds ahead of Lindsey Gerhardstein from Sandburg (18:11). Morgan Dick of Oswego East ran 18:23 to finish third.

#7 Naperville Central scored 58 points to edge #14 Wheaton North (63 points) for the team title. #8 Sandburg scored 90 points to finish third.

Central ran 5 runners in the top 23 in this race led by the win from Phillips and top 10 finishes from Lola Satre-Morales (9th) and Ava Hendren (10th). The two runners were separated by just a second. Abby Mogg (17th) and Becca Liaw (23rd) were part of the top five that had a 52 second split from Satre-Morales to Liaw.

Wheaton North continues to run stronger with every race. Freshman Emily Offutt finished fourth in 18:32 and Maddie Romaine ran 18:43 to finish seventh. The Falcons ended up with a 66 second split on their top five runners.