History Made: Girls Win Regional Championship
Going into the IHSA 1A Westmont Regional at Westmont High School, the girls were in a statistical tie with Genoa-Kingston for the top spot in the Regional. Our girls were confident but knew it would be a close race. River Valley Christian would also be in the hunt, but they are always a tough team to rank because they run mostly 5K races during the season. With longtime Lisle cross country coach Ken Jakalski in attendance, along with 15 Lisle students who came to cheer on the team and our supportive parents, it was going to be a great morning it was going to be a great morning no matter the outcome. Luckily, the outcome was just as good as the weather on Saturday morning.
Girls Race - Results
When Illinois Running News wrote their preview for the Westmont Regional, senior Dani Erickson and junior Ashley Ritchey were not mentioned in the running to win the individual title. Coach Miller took this personally for Dani and Ashley (even if the girls seemed unbothered by it) and told the girls to hang with the front pack as long as they could. Dani and Ashley did just that and were with the front pack of seven for the first two miles. Genoa-Kingston's Emma James fell off the pack first, and in the final mile Richmond-Burton's Khloe Lundy and Westmont's Aelyn Anderson pulled away from the pack to finish in 18:18 and 18:20. Ashley and Dani improved their seeds, though, to finish in 18:35 and 18:40, respectively. Their 3rd and 4th-place finishes were just ahead of where they were seeded at 4th and 5th. Ashley tied her lifetime PR and both girls took home All-Regional honors. These were the first cross country runners, boys or girls, to place in the top-five at a Regional since Christine Young in 2009. Junior Summer Klein did not have her best race at Westmont finishing in 12th place with a time of 20:06, but an average race for Summer is still great for our team. Summer was in an awkward place in the Regional seeding with only one runner ahead of her who had a similar PR. Summer did beat that runner from Genoa-Kingston, but ended up getting passed by another Genoa-Kingston runner as well as a few River Valley Christian runners and one runner from Johnsburg. Summer will get another shot at those runners at the McNamara Sectional next week and she is going to come back strong. Junior Jennifer Duban had another solid race, finishing 18th in 20:34. While she didn't continue her streak of PRs (overall Westmont was a slow course and there weren't a lot of PRs for any teams), she did what we needed her to do for the team. Jen finished just ahead of Genoa-Kingston's fourth and fifth runners and with Ashley and Dani moving up a bit and Summer holding serve, this was probably enough to secure a win. The probably is because we needed to see what sophomore Madi Madsen did as our fifth runner. Madi has been slowly improving all season, but she had her breakout race just when it counted. She was a few seconds behind Jen after the first mile, but then made gains on Jen for the rest of the race. Those gains included gains on Genoa-Kingston's final scoring runners. At the finish, Madi used her speed to out-kick both Genoa-Kingston runners and finish just behind Jen in 19th place with a lifetime PR of 20:35. Sophomore Sofia Maldonado had another great race as our sixth runner and finished in 29th with a time of 22:23. On almost any other course Sofia runs another lifetime PR, but she ended up 10 seconds off of that pace. Senior Molly Martin was slightly off her recent paces, but she still ran her third-fastest race of the season with a 38th-place finish in 23:49.
River Valley Christian put up a fight in the team race, but out of the three teams competing for the championship they had the slowest fifth runner. This is where Madi's superb performance really came into play. It would have been a much closer race had Madi not had her breakthrough race. It was still pretty close, but our Lions beat River Valley Christian 56 to 62 and Genoa-Kingston came in third with 73 points. The girls have set themselves up well for the Sectional next week if they can keep this pack together.
Boys Race - Results
The boys race did not go nearly as well as the girls. Luke Erickson had a goal of earning All-Regional honors with a top-five finish, but a sickness that he still wasn't over by Saturday put a crimp in those plans. Luke still ran a solid race with an 11th-place finish in 16:58, but it wasn't where he wanted to be and he finished behind a number of runners he has already beaten by quite a bit this year. Junior Charlie Wang probably had the best race on the boys team. Charlie ran a time of 18:40, his second-fastest 3-mile of his career, and finished in 33rd place. Charlie ran solid splits of 5:54, 6:23, and 6:23 on a slow course. Sophomore Cayden Denhart also had a good race and ran not far behind Charlie. Cayden finished in 37th with a time of 19:10, which represents his third-fastest time ever. Junior Liam Newton bounced back a bit from his poor Conference race. Although he encountered some back pain during the race, Liam still finished with his second-fastest time of the season with a time of 19:26 in 39th place. Sophomore Blake Madsen wasn't far behind and also had a great race finishing in 42nd place with his second-fastest time ever of 19:33. Senior Simon Klein finished as our 6th runner with a time of 20:45 in 54th place and freshman Carson Thomas was our 7th runner who finished with a time of 22:23 in 62nd place.
The boys were shooting for a top-three finish at the Regional, but Marian Catholic and Genoa-Kingston had great races and our runners decidedly did not. Lisle finished in 7th with 146 points. While this was the last qualifying place for Sectionals, it was still well ahead of 8th-place Aurora Christian with 177 points. The boys have the potential to qualify for State, but we need to put together their best races of the year next week. On a positive note, the boys were two minutes faster on average as a team than last year's boys team. We were just in a much harder Regional this year.
Lion of the Meet
Every week there are multiple runners the coaches consider for Lion of the Meet. That didn't really happen this week, though. It was incredibly clear that Madi Madsen was our Lion of the Meet with her lifetime PR and nearly 30-second improvement over her season PR. Madi was a major part of our Regional win and will make our girls a tough team to beat at the Sectional next week. Congrats, Madi!
