Granite City Sectional
Girls – The weather in the St. Louis area turned out to be good with the rain holding off until after the meet. It allowed for the speedway known as Wilson Park to use their long straightaways to turn to fast times. Tessa Russo of Plainfield South won her second race in a row after winning at Plainfield Central last week. The sophomore ran 16:53.5 on the 3-mile course to win by four seconds ahead of Brea Counihan of Lincoln-Way Central (16:57.9). Morgan Dick of Oswego East (17:18.9), Marlie Czarniewski of Plainfield North (17:24.6), and Ali Ince of Normal Community (17:25.3) were all a part of the top five individuals in this race.
#9 Yorkville was in command in this race from the start winning the Sectional title led by the sixth place finish from Sophia Keeler who ran 17:27. Annabelle Reeder was the second runner for the Foxes running 17:37 to finish tenth. She was followed by Ashley Schraeder (15th), Allegra Triner (20th), and Liliana Camargo (23rd). Yorkville had a 36 second split on their top 5.
#11 Plainfield North continues to run strong finishing second with 91 points having 5 runners in the top 44. The Tigers were led by Russo and Marlie Czarniewski in the top five followed by Elsie Czarniewski (18th), Kaitlyn Ward (29th), and Emaan Hussain (44th). #15 Oswego East finished third (130 points) followed by #13 Lincoln-Way Central (139 points), #8 Minooka (143 points), and Edwardsville (148 points). #20 Lincoln-Way East was the final team to qualify for state from this sectional with 179 points. #26 Normal Community West was the first team out of qualifying missing to go to Peoria by eight points.
Boys – Three of the top four ranked teams in Class 3A did not disappoint in this sectional race ending with some fast times. O’Fallon had the advantage for most of the race with Plainfield North and Plainfield South close behind. All the moves in this race happened in the final half mile with the two Plainfield schools taking charge. The Plainfield South duo of Camyn Viger and Dylan Maloney finished 1-2 to finish off the race. Viger was timed in 14:12.9 for the sectional win followed by Maloney (14:16). Thomas Czerwinski of Plainfield North finished third (14:18.1) followed by O’Fallon’s Dylan Ybarra (14:18.3) and Zach Thoman (14:20.3) finishing fourth and fifth. Owen Stahl of Plainfield North (14:20.9) and Jeremiah Lanum of Bradley-Bourbonnais (14:24.2) rounded out the lead pack finishing sixth and seventh. The next pack started 20 seconds later.
#4 Plainfield North edged #2 Plainfield South 55-64 for the sectional title with #3 O’Fallon scoring 80 points to finish third. All three teams will have a say on who wins the state championship next Saturday.
The Tigers placed 5 runners in the top 21 running a 37 second split on the group. Quinn Davis was the team’s third runner (11th) following Czerwinski and Stahl. Aidan Connors (19th) and Gavin Hall (21st) was the team’s fourth and fifth runners. Eason Miller was the team’s sixth runner finishing two seconds behind Hall running 14:59.
Plainfield South had a 58 split on their top five finishing behind Viger and Maloney. Riley Fink and Joaquin DeAlba were separated by just a second finishing 14th and 16th. Freshman Allex Batsala was the team’s fifth runner placing 38th. The split between Maloney and Fink was 37 seconds. The split between Fink and Batsala was 17 seconds. O’Fallon’s split was 58 seconds in this race behind the finishes from Ybarra and Thoman. Eli Greenstreet was the team’s third runner (14:42) finishing 8th followed by Brayden Kloeppel (25th) and Jackson Gherardini (47th).
