What a day for Lisle cross country! I tried to do some research to find the last time the Lisle cross country program won trophies at a regular-season invitational, but I couldn't find anything for the girls team (although they did win conference championships in 2005 and 2006), and I had to go back to the 1980s for the boys. What happened yesterday at Portage Park in Chicago was unprecedented and shows how far this program has come. Great things will be happening for our team this year and the Rickover Invite was just the start.

Full Meet Splits

Girls Varsity Race - Results

We knew going into the race that the girls team had a good shot of earning a trophy. With new cross country runners Ashley Ritchey and Summer Klein there were some unknowns, however. The girls team answered all of those questions and dominated the varsity race for the team's first invitational win in a long time (maybe ever). Senior Dani Erickson and junior Ashley Ritchey ran together for the entire race and ran perfect mile splits. They were behind a runner from Lake View, but that runner ended up taking the wrong path towards the end of the race and even though Dani and Ashley tried to redirect her, they still ended up finishing in first and second with times of 13:00 (a course record for Portage Park) and 13:03. Juniors Summer Klein and Jennifer Duban ran with sophomore Madi Madsen for the first mile. Summer and Madi stuck together the entire race with Summer pulling ahead in the last mile to finish in third with a time of 13:49. Madi's 400m kick nearly caught Summer, though, and Madi finished fourth with a time of 13:50. Jennifer, who was running while sick, fell behind a bit on the second mile but still finished in 10th place to put all five of our runners on the medal stand. The girls turned in a dominant performance with 18 points. Chicago (Lake View) was in a distant second with 71 points while Chicago (Senn) took the final trophy with 86 points.

Boys Varsity Race - Results

The boys were running without two of our top runners in senior Simon Klein and junior Charlie Wang. That didn't prevent the boys from securing their first invite trophy in decades. Unsurprisingly, freshman Luke Erickson led the team with a dominant race. He started the first mile in third place, running a 5:26, but ran a great second mile to pass one of the two runners from Lake View and was the only runner on the team to run a negative split (faster time) in the second mile. Luke's second mile of 5:23 gave him a final time of 10:49 for his second-place finish. Junior Liam Newton and freshman Carson Thomas spent most of the race running as a pair. They finished the first mile neck-and-neck at 6:11 and Liam only started to pull away from Carson in the final 400 meters. Liam finished in 19th place with a time of 12:35, while Carson finished one place behind Liam in 12:41. Sophomore Cayden Denhart separated himself from our final pack running a 6:22 first mile and finishing in 28th place with a time of 13:04. Our final three runners (sophomore Blake Madsen, senior Lincoln Calfo, and senior Aiden Slehofer) ran together for the majority of the race. All three crossed the mile mark together, but Blake and Lincoln started to separate from Aiden in the last quarter of the race. Blake ended up finishing in 37th place with a time of 13:20 and Lincoln was one place behind in 13:26. Aiden kept Blake and Lincoln in sight, though, and finished in 39th place with a time of 13:35. In the team race, Chicago (Lake View) took the win with 69 points. Lisle finished in second with 94 and Chicago (Noble/ITW Speer) was third with 96 points.

Open Race - Girls Results - Boys Results

The boys and girls ran together in the open race, but were scored separately. In the boys race, freshman Steven King ran the best two-mile race of his running career. Steven had a P.R. of 17:03 in junior high (a time he ran in 7th grade), but turned in an amazing 13:59 at yesterday's meet to finish in 8th place to earn a medal. Senior Ethan George ran his first cross country race ever and finished in 16th place with a time of 14:57. Sophomore Liam Marquez finished in 30th with a time of 18:35, which topped his previous two-mile P.R. by over two minutes!

The girls decided to match the varsity girls by finishing in the top four spots. Sophomore Sofia Maldonado, running her first cross country race, led the entire race and took home the win in 15:57. Freshman Lila Helderle held on to second place for the entire race and finished in 16:29. Fellow freshman Hylie Woodhouse ran a few steps ahead of junior Rose Helderle for most of the race. Hylie kept her lead on Rose to finish third in 17:09, but Rose nearly caught her and finished fourth in 17:12. Freshman Giuliana Rotelli was in the top six for the majority of the race and ended up finishing in 8th with a time of 18:23. Sophomore Violet King finished in 13th place out of 25 runners and had a two-mile P.R. of 20:41.

Lion of the Meet

There were a number of candidate for our Lion of the Meet Award. Steven King dropping three minutes from his two-mile P.R. stood out as did fellow open runner Ethan George who ran pretty even splits of 7:22 and 7:35 in his first cross country race. Dani Erickson and Sofia Maldonado winning the two girls races were candidates as well. Liam Newton ran great splits of 6:12 and 6:23 in the boys varsity race and Luke Erickson was the only runner to run a negative split for the second mile. Our Lion of the Meet, though, is Ashley Ritchey. In her first-ever cross country race Ashley ran a 13:03 for two miles. This was the 5th-fastest two mile in team history (the girls ran two miles for IHSA cross country for two decades) and Ashley earned second place in the race. What a great start to Ashley's cross country career!