Prospect Girls repeat as Nike XC Town Twilight Champions

Plainfield South Boys finish second behind Maloney, Viger top 10 finishes; Keller, Phillips, Farrell among top 10 runners in championship race

By Michael Newman

After a tough month of training and racing for the Prospect HS Girls team, the Lady Knights ended the month of September with a convincing repeat win at the Nike XC Town Twilight Invitational held at Lavern Gibson Championship Course.

Results

Prospect scored 94 points to repeat as the Girls champions in the Championship race. Noblesville IN scored 134 points to finish second ahead of Mason OH (153 points), Homestead IN (192 points), and North Central IN (198 points). O’Fallon scored 763 points to finish 28th in the championship. Peoria Notre Dame finished 31st (825 points).

Prospect built through this race finishing the way they wanted to in the end. The Knights were in eighth as a team at 2k, and then surged to take the lead at 3k. They never looked back for the rest of the race.

Veronica Znajda led her team in this race the way she has the entire month as she ran 18:02.4 finishing 13th overall. Lily Ginsberg ran 18:05.7 to finish 14th just ahead of Meg Peterson who ran 18:09.9 to finish 15th. Ireland Wildhart ran 19:01.6 to finish 41st and Sophie Fransen ran 19:03.6 to finish 46th as the team’s fourth and fifth runners. The team’s overall top five split in this race was 61 seconds. Their split between Peterson and Wildhart was 52 seconds.

The individual race came down to the final kilometer on the Gibson course with three Illinois runners playing a huge part in it. Isabella Keller of Effingham St. Anthony, Liv Phillips of Naperville Central, and Molly Farrell of Marshall were together in the top 10 at 2k. Keller made a move in the next kilometer up to second-place putting herself in contention for the win. The final kilometer in this race was wild as Keller, Libby Dowty of Indian Creek IN, Zariel Macchia of William Floyd NY, Nicki Southerland of Delta IN, Julia Score of Bishop Chatard IN, and Natalie Barnard Of Wildwood Lafayette MOP were all within two seconds of each other.

Zacharia, who had the lead entering the final portion of the race, was the runner who made the final move passing the starting line heading to the finish with the lead. The New York junior pulled away to run 17:01 to claim the individual title. Southerland passed Keller in the final meters to run 17:06.3 to finish second. Keller, in her fifth high school race ever, ran 17:06.6 to finish third. Her time is equivalent to 16:31 for 3-miles.

Plainfield South ran a great tactical race in the Boys Championship race moving from the middle of the race to in position to claim the team title. Much of their progress in this race came upon the legs of Dylan Maloney and Camyn Viger in the front. Both runners were in the top 20 at 2 kilometers. Maloney is running with confidence, and it showed last week at Palatine. It reappeared in the final mile of this race as he moved into the top five as Viger maintained his top ten position.

Maloney had moved up to within two seconds of race leaders Sam Quagliaroli of Fishers IN and Cameron Todd of Brebeuf Jesuit. Both leaders made their move near the shoe tree opening up an advantage on Maloney. Todd exploded with a great kick in the final 300-meters of the race to claim the win with a meet record of 14:48.1. It was the sixth fastest Boys High School time ever on this course. Quagliaroli was next (14:52.8) followed by Maloney (14:57.7). Viger ran 15:09.3 finishing 12 seconds behind his teammate.

Carmel IN repeated as team winners in the championship race with 192 points. Plainfield South, who finished third in this race last year, scored 239 points to finish second. Jesuit LA (250 points), Rock Bridge MO (274 points) , and Mason OH (298 points) rounded out the top five teams.

There was a 41 second gap between Viger and their third runner Joaquin DeAlba who ran 15:50.7 to finish 54th overall. Riley Fink ran 16:08.5 (86th) and Alex Batsala (103rd) as the team’s fourth and fifth runners. The three runners were separated by 24 seconds.

O’Fallon finished ninth (355 points) led by Dylan Ybarra running 15:21.3 to finish 17th and Zach Thoman running 15:30.4 finishing 26th. Lyons Township finished 16th led by Nick Strayer running 15:29.1 to finish 23rd.

Prospect scored 103 points when the two Open division races to win the overall Boys open team title. The Knights stayed together throughout ending with a 14 second split on their top five runners. John Peterson led the team running 16:22 to finish 12th overall in the Open Division #2 race. Peoria Notre Dame finished fifth (379 points combined).