Since Lisle High School was founded in 1956, only three fall sports have won Sectional championships. Volleyball had a dominant run in the 1980s, winning sectional championships in 1985, 1986, and 1988, as well as two state trophies. Boys soccer won Sectional championships in 2010 and 2011 to coincide with a State championship and State runner-up finish. Most recently, the girls golf team won a Sectional championship in 2015. In the history of Lisle cross country, there has never been a Sectional championship until this year.

Full Meet Splits

Girls Race - Results

Going into the Sectional at Kankakee Community College, our girls were the clear favorites. Genoa-Kingston and River Valley Christian were not far behind our girls at the Westmont Regional, though, so we would still need to run a great race to win. The individual title was expected to come down to Haven Barwegen of Bishop McNamara and Klarke Goranson of Manteno, so our front-runners, senior Dani Erickson and junior Ashley Ritchey, planned to stay with the next pack. Not only did Ashley and Dani stay with that pack, but they also exceeded all expectations. Ashley came within one second of beating last week's Regional runner-up, Westmont's Aelyn Anderson, who was ahead of Ashley by 15 seconds last week. Ashley improved her school-record time by an astounding 25 seconds to finish in 4th place with a time of 18:11. Dani had just as gutsy of a race. She started to fall off the pace of the pack, but she didn't give up. Dani was behind two runners from River Valley Christian toward the end of the race. Knowing how important the team competition was, she found the will to pass both of them, including one whom she narrowly beat at the finish. Dani ended up finishing just one place behind Ashley in 5th with a new PR of 18:20. Ashley and Dani became only the fourth and fifth girls in Lisle cross country history to earn All-Sectional honors. They also became the first pair of runners of any gender to earn All-Sectional honors in the same year in team history. At that point, our girls had finished with two runners in fourth and fifth place, while River Valley Christian's first two runners finished sixth and eighth. Genoa-Kingston wasn't far behind and their top two runners crossed in 11th and 12th. With the front-runners in, the race would come down to how the rest of the top five performed. Our normal #3 runner, junior Summer Klein, had a good race, but not her best. However, junior Jennifer Duban stepped up along with sophomore Madi Madsen to run the best races of their cross country career. Jen knew she was around a pack of runners from Genoa-Kingston and River Valley Christian and she ran a huge PR of 19:50 (only the second time she has broken 20 minutes) and ended up in 22nd place just behind River Valley Christian in 20th and Genoa-Kingston in 21st. With Ashley and Dani putting some distance between River Valley and Genoa's top runners, Jen did her job to keep us ahead. Genoa-Kingston's fourth runner finished one place behind Jen, so Madi and Summer would need to finish ahead of Genoa-Kingston's fifth runner to prevent Genoa-Kingston from winning. For most of the race, Summer ran alongside Genoa-Kingston's fifth runner and River Valley Christian's fourth runner. Madi started a bit behind them, but ended up catching up and passing the fifth runner from Genoa-Kingston as well as Summer. River Valley Christian's fifth runner ended up finishing ahead of Madi and Summer by one place, but their fifth runner didn't come in until 43rd place. Madi ended up passing Genoa-Kingston's fifth runner and Summer stayed ahead of that runner to give our girls the win. Madi finished in 30th place with a lifetime PR of 20:09 while Summer finished just behind Madi in 31st place with a time of 20:10. Genoa-Kingston's fifth runner finished five seconds later in 33rd place. Although the team race had been decided by that point, sophomore Sofia Maldonado and senior Molly Martin also had great races as our sixth and seventh runners. Sofia, who had failed to set a PR in only two races this season, returned to her PR-setting ways. Sofia had a fire in her and ran down runners ahead of her, breaking 22 minutes for the first time. She finished in 51st place with a time of 21:45. Sofia has had a great debut cross country season and has one more shot to get that PR even lower. Molly ran her second-fastest time of the season, finishing in 75th place with a time of 23:10. Molly has been a steady presence on the team since her freshman year and will be missed next year.

Boys Race - Results

The boys had an outside chance of qualifying for State, but things went off the rails from the start. Freshman Luke Erickson, who was aiming for a top-ten finish, started just outside the top ten but fell back from there. Luke still ran his second-fastest time of the season, finishing in 16:20. Although he finished 17 seconds behind the tenth-place runner, his 17th-place finish was enough to earn him an individual State qualification. Luke becomes the first boy since Colin Ruthe in 2023 to qualify for State, only the third boy in the past 20 years to qualify, and the first freshman boy to qualify since Chris Jones in 1992. Sophomore Cayden Denhart was the only runner for the boys to run a lifetime PR and he was the closest to his goal for the race. Cayden's goal was to finish in the top 60, and he finished 67th with a time of 18:17, nearly 15 seconds faster than his previous PR. Junior Charlie Wang was trying to break 18 minutes, but it wasn't to be. Charlie ran an incredibly fast first mile of 5:43, which seemingly took a toll on him over the final two miles. He slowed to 6:31 and 6:21 for his second and third miles, respectively. He gave it his all and finished in 76th place with a time of 18:35. Junior Liam Newton ran decent splits of 5:55 and 6:19 for the first two miles, but fell off the pace for the final mile while running a 6:46. Liam ended up finishing in 87th place with a time of 19:00. Freshman Carson Thomas came back from an injury to run a solid race. Carson ran the third-fastest time of his freshman season and finished in 94th place with a time of 19:16. Senior Simon Klein and sophomore Blake Madsen were our sixth and seventh runners. Simon capped off a season he wasn't even sure he could compete in by running another season PR, finishing in 97th place with a time of 19:24. Simon finishes his Lisle cross country career with the 39th-fastest time in school history as well as the sophomore course records at Eastwood Golf Course, Harvest Christian Academy, and Kankakee Community College to go along with his junior-year record at Eastwood. Blake, while not meeting his place goal of top 85, still ran his second-fastest time of his career to finish in 101st place with a time of 19:31.

Lion of the Meet

There were a few candidates for Lion of the Meet this week. On the boys' side, Luke and Charlie set team course records at Kankakee Community College, while Cayden recorded a lifetime PR. Dani and Ashley set huge PRs as well as course records. Jen and Madi both had PRs and Jen moved in 9th place on our all-time leaderboard while Madi moved into 12th. Our Lion of the Meet, though, is Sofia Maldonado. Sofia ran a solid race with great splits of 7:06, 7:36, and 7:03. Sofia is currently 26th on our all-time list and is only 13 seconds away from breaking into the top 25 and earning a spot on the first page of our leaderboard. Congrats, Sofia!