Post-Post-Season Results
November 18, 2012
Cross country isn't a sport that stops after state. Runners from the high school and middle school teams have all been competing in a number of different races.
The high school started things out with the girls participating in the Nike Midwest Cross Country Regional last weekend in Terre Haute, Indiana. The Nike series is considered to be the unofficial national championship for high school cross country and the Midwest Regional sees teams from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri competing. The top 2 teams move on to Nationals in Oregon as well as the top 5 individuals. This was Yorkville's first year competing in the Nike series and they finished 8th overall. Skyler Bollinger led the way in 20th place with a time of 19:01 and was followed by Summer Pierson (36th, 19:15), Casey Kramer (41st, 19:19), Erin Reynolds (127th, 20:14), Kelsey Leedy (145th, 20:23), Sydney Beach (172nd, 20:42), and Bri Stuepfert (179th, 20:46).
This weekend saw a lot of post-post-season results. Casey Kramer and Zak Arcara of the high school team were both invited to run for Team Illinois in the Mid-East Cross Country Championships. The best senior high school runners are invited to compete for their state and both Yorkville runners had great races. Casey finished in 36th place with a team of 19:29 as her team finished 3rd behind Ohio and Indiana. Zak finished 47th with a time of 16:46 and his team finished second to Michigan after losing the tie-breaker.
Finally, our middle school runners did a lot of running this weekend. Dawson Diederich participated in two races. On Saturday he ran in the USA Track & Field Junior Olympics in Naperville with the Naperville Track Club. Dawson finished 4th on his team in the 2.86 mile race and his team finished third overall, which qualified them for the National Championship on December 8 in New Mexico.
Dawson had a great race against some of the best runners from nearby states and then came back on Sunday to run the Chili Chase 5K in Yorkville. Dawson finished 2nd in his age group in the Chili Chase (behind high school runner Jake Firrantello) with a time of 19:43. Other YMS runners running the Chili Chase included Maddie Dearborn (won her age group with a time of 22:38), Nicole Doles (2nd, 23:11), Julia Megazzini (3rd, 23:42), Anna Doty (6th, 28:22), Patrick Black (4th, 21:02), Jacob Martin (7th, 24:55), and Brian Sandor (9th, 28:06).
