Kilrea and Hart win individual varsity titles

By Eric Hofmann

October 15, 2016

One of the weekend's biggest took place on the south campus of Lyons Township High School in Western Springs. The girls varsity was fifth on the slate of the day’s eight races at the West Suburban Conference - Silver championship.  By this time, given the mist coming down through much of the morning and the course being a three loop routing that had been traversed twelve times already in the previous races, the turf was somewhat sloppy in places.  Glenbard West lived up to their billing as the favorite, though the team score was closer than many expected.

Katelynne Hart led from gun to tape, running 16:46.  Hart, who often runs with teammate Lindsey Payne during races, took off on her own this time, running the first two miles in about 11:10.  Around that point, Payne came close to catching Hart, but then the freshman took off, increasing the gap until the finish.  Lyons Township’s own front-running duo led the team to a second place finish.  Sarah Barcelona and Emily Henkel were patient in the early stages of the race, content to allow others to mix it up in the front and trailing the lead by thirty seconds at two miles.  These two and the rest of their team behind moved up through the field, with Barcelona and Henkel finishing third and fourth.  Sarah May of York rounded out the top five.  In spite of the team victory, the Glenbard West girls felt their performance was less than optimal.   Hart did run a personal record in not the fastest of conditions; however Payne noted her own breathing problems and usual third runner Katie Hohe not feeling well held the team back. According to Glenbard West Coach Paul Hass, Hohe complained of an injury mid-week. She felt the injury flare up after the first mile of the race causing her to finish 31st overall

The boys competition was another close-knit affair, again with two teammates taking it out hard.  Danny Kilrea and Vince Zona have alternated as Lyons’s first and second runners throughout the season, with Kilrea joyously taking the top spot today in 14:45.  Zona credited Kilrea’s fast pace early with pulling him along and allowing them to break free from the field.  Behind them, Charlie Kern, the York runner who won a close over Zona and Kilrea in Peoria two weeks ago, battled Hindale Central’s Blake Evertsen, with Irwin Loud of Oak Park-River Forest trailing by a few strides.  Of this group, Evertsen had the most in the tank at the end, blasting away in the last mile to put fifteen seconds on Kern and come within three of Zona.  Evertsen rated his race a B+, feeling he may have saved too much for the finish and would have liked to stay closer to the top two earlier.  Despite Lyons’s strength up front, they were unable to end their drought in the WSC-Silver, and Downers Grove North emerged as team champion by packing all of their scoring runners in ahead of Lyons’s third.  Lyons held a slight advantage over DGN in scoring at the mile split, and North’s superior pacing paid off.  John Sipple was overjoyed to win his first conference championship in his fifth year as head coach at DGN, but deflected all attention towards the athletes.  The boys emphasized their work together as a team in training and competition. Senior Andrew Marek said they do not have a number one runner, but seven number ones.

The boys race certainly made a case for this being Illinois’s strongest conference.  It says something about the depth that athletes from the top five teams all expressed state meet aspirations in post-race interviews.