Herscher Invite Results
After running at Detweiller last week, a course like Herscher’s Limestone Park can tend to produce slower times. Detweiller is a fast course with good competition and while Herscher isn't a slow course, the hills runners encounter in the southeast corner of the park are definitely challenging. Despite these challenges, we saw 15 personal records at the Herscher Invite out of 21 runners as well as 9 lifetime personal records. At this point, most runners are approaching or have already passed the paces they ran at the two-mile Rickover Invite at the start of the season. As I said at the time, being able to run a pace for two miles is indicative of being able to run that pace for three miles. I recommend runners check out their profiles on our Runners page to see the graph showing how their times have improved over the course of the season.
Full Meet Splits
Combined Freshman/Sophomore Race - Boys Results / Girls Results
Freshman Lila Helderle had another solid race and after running under 25 minutes for the first time last week at Detweiller, she almost did the same at Limestone Park's harder course finish on the medal stand with a 5th-place finish in 25:01. Fellow freshman Hylie Woodhouse ran her best race of the season and was even with Lila at the mile. After Lila pulled ahead in the second mile, Hylie gained ground in the final mile to nearly catch her. Hylie ended in 6th place with a lifetime PR of 25:05. Freshman Giuliana Rotelli had a solid first two miles, coming across the two-mile mark in 18:40 (her fastest two-mile since Rickover). The third mile is where Giuliana pulled off an amazing feat and ran a 7:48, her fastest mile of the season, to finish in 9th place with a lifetime PR of 26:28. Sophomore Violet King ran a 35:03 to finish in 14th and the lone boy in the race, sophomore Liam Marquez, ran a lifetime PR of 28:05 to finish in 39th place.
Girls Varsity Race - Results
Senior Dani Erickson and junior Ashley Ritchey ran together for the first mile at Herscher, but Dani pulled away from Ashley a bit during the final two miles. Dani ran a great race to finish second with a time of 19:03 and only a few seconds away from a lifetime PR. Dani and Ashley both set course PRs for the senior girls and junior girls. Lisle has been running at Limestone Park since the early 1990s so this is a huge accomplishment. Ashley ended up finishing in 4th place with a lifetime best time of 19:21. Ashley also moves up to third on the all-time leaderboard for Lisle just behind Dani. Junior Summer Klein ran her best race of the year and met her season goal of breaking 20:30. Summer ran a solid race and finished in 11th place with a lifetime PR of 20:26. Junior Jennifer Duban had her best race of the season running not far behind Summer for the first mile. While Jen dropped off from Summer's pace, she still had solid second and third miles including a 12-second negative split for her last mile. Jen finished as our 4th runner for the first time at an invite this season and ran a season PR of 21:02 finishing in 16th place. Sophomore Madi Madsen also had a season PR with her 19th-place finish in 21:48 and she joined Dani and Ashley by setting a course record for the Lisle sophomore girls. The Limestone Park course records are now entirely set by runners on this year's team since Dani holds the freshman record as well as the senior record. Sophomore Sofia Maldonado ran an incredible race and set another lifetime PR with her time of 23:08 in 23rd place. The most incredible part was that Sofia, as our sixth runner, beat the fifth runner of every other team in the race. The closest fifth runner to Sofia was Herscher's runner who was 40 seconds behind Sofia. This earns our team major points and is a big reason why the girls team did so well. Senior Molly Martin finished as our team seventh runner with a time of 24:43 in 45th place and junior Rose Helderle finished in 58th place with a time of 26:09.
The team race wasn't even close with our girls earning 37 points, conference opponent Herscher finishing with 83, and last year's conference champion Manteno finishing with 86. Our top five runners finished ahead of Herscher's top two and, as stated earlier, our sixth runner, Sofia, finished ahead of every other team's fifth runner. It was a dominant performance and should give the girls some confidence going into conference in three weeks.
Boys Varsity Race - Results
The boys have had trouble getting a full squad together this season as almost every week we have had a different varsity runner out. That was no different at the Herscher Invite, but the boys still had great races individually. Freshman Luke Erickson continues to run beyond his years and ran great splits of 5:32, 5:48, and 5:32. He finished with a medal in 11th place and a time of 16:52 marking the second week in a row he has broken 17 minutes. Luke joined his sister by setting a course record for freshman boys at Limestone Park. Junior Charlie Wang had a second great race in a row and ran another lifetime PR by finishing in 39th place with a time of 19:13. Sophomore Cayden Denhart ran his best race of the season and finished with a season PR of 19:47 while finishing in 46th place to lead our pack. Freshman Carson Thomas had his best race of the season. After a few races in a row where he got off to a bad start, Carson started the race close to Luke and set his season goal of breaking 20 minutes with a time of 19:56 while finishing in 51st place. Sophomore Blake Madsen also has a season goal of breaking 20 minutes and he was incredibly close finishing just behind Carson in 53rd place with a time of 20:03. Senior Aiden Slehofer had his best race of the season and ran incredible splits of 6:45, 7:13, and 6:36 to finish with a season PR of 20:54 in 60th place. Freshman Steven King ran a good race just a little off his pace from Detweiller and finished in 63rd place with a time of 21:05. Senior Lincoln Calfo ran his first race in a few weeks and finished in 72nd place with a season PR of 21:59.
Lion of the Meet
As usual, a lot of runners were candidates for this week's Lion of the Meet. Hylie nearly met her season goal of breaking 25 minutes. Giuliana ran an INCREDIBLE final mile to set a new personal best. Liam ran as the only boy in the open race for Lisle and set a personal best. Summer met her season goal of breaking 20:30. Madi set a season PR while setting a sophomore course record at Limestone Park. Sofia beat EVERY other team's fifth runner as our sixth runner. Luke set a freshman course record while continuing to run even splits. Charlie set a lifetime PR for the second week in a row. Carson ran his best race of the season and met his season goal of breaking 20 minutes. Cayden ran his best race of the year while setting a season PR. Blake set a lifetime PR and nearly met his season goal. Aiden ran some of the best splits of his cross country career while setting a season PR. Our Lion of the Week, though, is Jennifer Duban. Jen was tasked with sticking as close to Summer as she could and while she dropped off Summer's pace after the first mile, she kept a solid pace through the final two miles to have her best race of the year and finish as our 4th runner with a season PR. Congrats, Jen!
