It’s all Plainfield South Boys and York Girls in Palatine Meet of Champions team wins

Anna Harden final mile surge gives her Girls title; Camyn Viger kick gives him come from behind win

By Michael Newman [email protected]

Palatine, Ill – The Boys and Girls Varsity races at Saturday’s Palatine Meet of Champions were pretty much over as the runners took the turn halfway into the Deer Grove East course. There was a sea of blue in the front of the Boys race. Green was the prevalent color in the Girls Varsity race towards the front pack.

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The top ranked Plainfield South Boys team had not raced since Peoria two weeks ago. Their finish in this meet was a subtle reminder to the rest of the teams in the state that they were still around. The Cougars put their first four runners in the top seven. Their top 5 finished in the top 16 with only a 25 second split to easily win the Boys team titled with a low 35 points.

Camyn Viger led South with his third invitational meet win of the season doing it in come from behind fashion. The junior had tried to pass Sami Hattab of St. Xavier KY in the final 200-meters. A final surge by Viger gave him the win with 14:44.74. Hattab was less than a second back with a 14:45.40 time.

The story of this race was about the pack that did not disappear in the front of the race. The leaders went through the first mile in 4:53 with at least 60 runners within 2 seconds of each other. Teams were having troubles find each other in their packs. It was not the case for Plainfield South as their top four runners in the front.

“Having the pack around me during the first half of the race was amazing,” Viger said after the race. “One of our guys just after the mile yelled SOUTH, let’s stay together. It was so crazy to hear that during the race.”

The pace slowed down in the next half-mile slowing to 7:28 at 1.5 miles. That is when the action up front started to happen. Hattab made his move to the lead shortly after that. Parker Nold of Oswego East had his turn as did Viger then Liam Newhart of Oswego East. Hattab made a final surge in the final mile that Viger countered. It then came down to the finish kick for the win for Viger.

“All those turns in the first mile we thought we had gone out quick. When we passed the first mile in 4:53, we were surprised,” Viger added. “There were moves going on the entire time throughout the race. All the runners in the front pack were making surges testing each other. We kept switching off.”

Newhart ran 14:48 to finish third three seconds ahead of Nold who ran 14:51. Then came the South pack of Dylan Maloney (14:56), Ethan Reynoso (15:00), and BJ Sorg (15:01) finishing from fifth to seventh. Owen O’Shea was the team’s fifth runner running 15:09 to finish 16th overall. The top 5 split was impressive. Their split from Maloney to O’Shea was even closer at only 13 seconds.

#10 Maine South was a distant second-place scoring 163 points. The Hawks were led by top 20 finishes from Luca Arcuri (11th) and Joey Karlesky (18th). The team had a 40 second split on their top 5 runners.

#18 Barrington ran into problems last week in Peoria with one runner not finishing and another runner suffering a concussion during the race. Their race on Saturday was cleaner as the Broncos scored 175 points along with #3 Oak Park-River Forest. Barrington was awarded third on a sixth runner tiebreak. Barrington had Joe Bregenzer in the top 10 to lead them. The sophomore ran 15:03 to finish eighth. The team, who has six underclassmen in their top seven, had a 51 second split on their top five that were all in the first 60 runners.

The race was not the race that Oak Park had the week before when they won in Peoria. The Huskies were one of those teams that had problems getting their pack together. It did not help that their #2 runner from last week’s race Daniel Johnson did not finish. Newhart was among the finishing leaders in the race. Nick Parrell led the Huskie pack finishing 13. The split on five last week was 45 seconds. This week, that split was 79 seconds where their split from second runner Nick Parrell and fifth runner Lewis O’Connor (86th) was 59 seconds.

#16 New Trier finished fifth with 184 points. Their split on their first four runners led by the 14 place finish from Ben Crane was only 31 seconds. Their overall top five split was 52 seconds.

Fans that crowded Deer Grove East to see a repeat of last week’s showdown between the top 2 Girls teams in the state, Prospect and York, might have been a little disappointed. As the Frosh/Soph race developed, three of the runners in this race were all runners that run up on Prospect’s varsity team last week. Veronica Znajda pulled away just before the halfway point to run 14:14 to win on the 2.5-mile course by 15 seconds ahead of Prospect teammate Meg Peterson (14:29). Prospect’s Ireland Wildhart made it a top three sweep as she finished third (15:17). All three runners should be in their next varsity race in Terre Haute, Indiana next Saturday.

With those three runners out for top ranked Prospect, it still  might have been tough to stay with York on this day. The Dukes ran with a different approach taking the race to the rest of the field instead of letting the race come to them.

“The plan definitely was to go out hard together and stay there as much as possible,” said York’s top runner in this race Bria Bennis. “Our focus the past two weeks has been pack running. We do all of our workouts together switching off leaders. Going out as close together in that first mile again was our key focus.”

York had the advantage from the first mile on in this race with their top four runners ahead of Prospect. The second-ranked Dukes went on to score only 54 points to defend their meet title. Bria Bennis led the team with a second-place finish. Michaela Quinn (6th), Katherine Klimek (9th), and Brooke Berger (16th) followed separated by 14 seconds. Maggie Quinn was the team’s fifth runner finishing 21st. The top five split from Bennis to the freshman Quinn was 53 seconds.

Assumption KY has traveled to Chicago for more than 10 years now and has been a mainstay in this meet. The Rockets and Prospect both scored 116 points with Assumption finishing second on the sixth-runner tiebreak. It is their best finish ever at this meet. Reagan Gilmore led her team placing in the top 10 finishing seventh overall. Their second through fifth pack was out standing with Elle Cargould (24th), Taryn Tracy (26th), Julia Schmitt (28th), and Leah Penick (31st) finishing within 16 seconds of each other.

Prospect moved up through the race to finish third in this meet. Hailey Erickson finished fifth to lead the Knights with teammate Lily Ginsberg finishing tenth. Cameron Kalaway (22nd), Samantha Patterson (34th), and Kaitlin Skelton (45th) rounded out the team’s top five.

Catherine Sommerfeld made her season’s debut for #9 Lyons Township finishing 14th overall. It gave the Lions fourth in the team race with 180 points. #4 Downers Grove North finished fifth (239 points) just ahead of #14 Maine South (249 points).

Hersey’s Anna Harden came off a great race with another great performance in this meet. Harden pulled away from a pack of eight runners to take home the individual title in this meet. Her winning time of 16:57 was seven seconds ahead of York’s Bria Bennis (17:04).

“I was disappointed that I did not break 17-minutes last week (in Peoria). That was my main goal today,” Harden said. “I knew today would have a competitive field. At a mile and a half, I just decided to go for it.”

Rachel Soukup of Prairie Ridge and Hadley Ferrero of Crystal Lake Central both ran great races finishing third and fourth. Both runners had 17:07 times. Prospect’s Hailey Erickson ran 17:09 to finish fifth.

The meet started with a bang as Palatine’s Alex Krieg took command of the Boys Freshman race early on.. Krieg went on to set a new 2.5-mile course record of 12.41.86 to win the race. The old course record was set by Charlie Kern Jr. (12:48.3) in 2014. Matt Pereira was the only other runner in the meet history to run under 13-minutes before Saturday (12:59.5, 2013). Both runners went on to become all-state runners in their high school careers. Kaden Wanckett of St. Xavier KY was also under 13-minutes in this race running 12:57.97 to finish second overall.

Other Boys race winners included Max Zangan of York pulling away in the final 600-meters to win the Sophomore race (15:36) finishing ahead of Mundelein’s Javier Mata (15:41) and New Trier’s Joey Papanicholas (15:42). Luka Kuzmanovic of Prospect ran 16:00 to win the Boys Junior Varsity race by 12 seconds ahead of August Talleur of St. Louis University MO.

Downers Grove North swept the first three places in the Girls Junior Varsity led by the individual win from Karly Harkness. Her time of 18:45 was 16 seconds faster than teammate McKenzie Willard.