By Michael Newman

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Coaches from Illinois contacted me at the end of June telling about Glenbard West’s incoming freshman Katelynne Hart and how much of an impact that she would be in 3A this season. She had a good resume heading into the high school ranks having run under 4:55 for 1600 meters and 2:13 for 800 meters. My big question that I had heading into this cross country season was how would this transition in high school racing.

It helps to have a state champion like Lindsey Payne to train with. The junior had just come off a track season where she was the 3A champion in the 3200 Meter Run as well as earning all-state honors in the 1600 Meter Run. The two trained together over the summer becoming the strongest 1-2 punch in the state this season.

Hart finished third in her first High School race at the Hornet Red-Devil Invitational behind Payne and Minooka’s Ashley Tutt. There was no looking back for Hart after that. She went undefeated the rest of the IHSA season including winning the 3A State race. Payne struggled through some of her races this year battling some minor illnesses. She still finished second behind Hart in every race that she was in after the Hinsdale race.

Both runners had great post seasons. Hart won the Midwest Nike Cross Regional following that up with an 18^th place finish at the Nike Cross National. Payne did not have her best race of the year at the NXR Regional finishing. She bounced back to finish 8^th at the Foot Locker Midwest Regional to qualify for the national race. Payne finished 17^th in San Diego.

It would be easy to give Hart the AOY in 3A this year especially with her accomplishments. I was fortunate to watch the two run in 5 races this IHSA season. It was great to see how the two raced off each other. It is a type of team running I love to see how each help each other out in touch part of the race. Hart and Payne started out too slow in the Naperville Twilight Invitational going through the mile between 15^th and 20^th. The two worked through the pack catching Minooka’s Emily Shelton in the final 800 pulling away for a 1-2 finish. The same happened at the state meet when the two runners got out comfortably but put themselves in position to be successful at the end of the race.

Katelynne was ahead in most of the races at the end. But it was a team effort helped by Lindsey to get to that point. That is what I considered when coming to this decision for this award.

Congratulations to Katelynne Hart and Lindsey Payne of Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn, Illinois as the DyeStat Illinois 2016 3A Girls Co-Cross Country Runners of the Year.