York finishes their quest with the IHSA 3A Girls team championship

Welin “repeats” in winning 3A individual race

By Michael Newman [email protected]

Peoria, Ill – It seemed that the penultimate race at the IHSA State Cross Country Championships Saturday at Detweiller Park would be three victory laps for York’s Girls team. The Dukes left the end of last year with a championship at the ShaZam Club Championships. Yet, they still had much more to prove.

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York has been ranked as the top 3A State team heading to Saturday’s race. They realized that this race would be no gimmie. It showed in their focus in their eyes just before the start.

York bolted out of the inside Box 3 and were in great position as they made the tight first turn.

That is when the victory lap begun.

They had a commanding lead at the end of the first mile with 68 points almost doubling the score of the next closest team Prospect. The score lowered at the finish to 62 points to win the second state championship in the program’s history. Their first state championship was in 2000. Their team time of 85:45 is the third fastest state meet team time in IHSA State Meet history trailing only the times that Naperville North and Yorkville had in the 2018 state meet.

“We just wanted to stay humble all year even with what we have accomplished the past few years,” said senior Katelyn Winton. “We just wanted to show that we were the best team in the state.”

“This feels amazing,” Bria Bennis said. “We have been working so hard for this all season. This feels so good.”

York had four all-state runners with 5 runners in the top 27. Their split of 35 seconds was their second-best split of the season. Katherine Klimek moved from 16 place at 2-miles to finish seventh overall. Bria Bennis ran 17:04 to finish 19th. Brooke Berger was two spots back in 21st running 17:07. Katelyn Winton was 23rd (17:15) as the team’s fourth all-state runner. Michaela Quinn ran 17:27 to finish 27th. Margaret Owens (41st) and Allison Fitzgibbons (106th) were the team’s sixth and seven runners.

Prospect has been strong most of the season, had some hiccups at the beginning of October, and got back to where they were to finish second with 151 points. Lily Ginsburg led the Lady Knights by finishing 11th  overall. Audrey Ginsberg (28th), Hailey Erickson (39), Cameron Kalaway (63), and Ireland Wildhart (77) were part of Prospect’s 68 second split.

Hinsdale Central finished third for the second IHSA State Meet in a row scoring 197 points. Catie McCabe all-state honors by finishing 14th in 16:58. Erin Milligan was next (42nd) followed by teammates Sarah Fischer (58th), Gabby Thanos (68th), and Louisa Brorson (102nd).

Minooka missed a trophy by seven points scoring 204 points to finish fourth led by Gabriella McCollom finishing 37th. Yorkville finished fifth (244 points) with Anna Hunter all-state finishing 20th.

An injury to Josephine Welin of Oak Park-River Forest slowed her early in the season. She peaked when the moment was right in winning the 3A individual title Saturday afternoon. Her race plan was the same as her three previous races were. Good out at a hard pace. Dare people to stay with her. Take out the kick of everyone else and build up a big lead to do that.

Welin pushed for the lead early passing the half mile in 2:31, the mile in 5:10. She had a 10 second lead on a pack led by Peyton Schieppe of O’Fallon and Brooke Johnston of Lake Zurich. The lead grew to 13 seconds as Welin passed 2-miles in 10:45. Katrina Schlenker of Batavia joined the chase pack with Johnson, Grace Schager of Glenbard North, and Aly Negovetich of Grant.

It looked like Welin was going to win this race easily as she entered the final incline to the finish. Negovetich had other ideas as she started to close the gap. She did run out of time and room as Welin with her second straight state cross country title, the first without an asterisk she said after the race. Her winning time was 16:26.

Negovetich finished her high school career in style finishing second (16:29) after finishing fourth three other times. Johnston will be the runner to watch next year as she ran 16:35 to finish third. Schager, another junior, has been running with an injury in the last month. She still finished fourth (16:41). Audrey Allman of Glenbard West, fell just before the finish. She got up and dove over the timing mat just ahead of Mia Pasha of Warren Township who ran a fantastic race finishing sixth. Both ran 16:50. Allman was 17th with a mile to go.