Perfect Weather!!! Finally (50 & NO Wind!!!) No Rain!
Going into this IHSA sectional, Emily, Lylia, Jackson and Tim knew the competition would be challenging. The first obstacle the four athletes had to face, “Would the bus arrive on time, or not show up at all. The coaches took matters into their on hands this week and made sure the athletes weren’t late by personally driving all athletes to the meet. The athletes were excited to hear this. Emily replied, ” coach make sure to get the van a couple days in advance, just as a precaution.’ We wouldn’t want anything to happen to the van.
The Race: Due to the perfect weather, the course was fast and records were broken today. In the girls race the top four girls broke the course record, but only the winner of the race will get credit for breaking the record.(Yorkville, Emily Eberhart with a time of 17:18. Lylia and Emily ran great throughout the race, moving up each mile. The coaches were yelling at the lady Maroons, ‘You have to start going now during that last mile”. Lylia and Emily responded by running by other runners until they reached the finish line. Lylia crossing the finish line in 18th place with a time of 18:43 with a strong kick and Emily not to far behind crossing the line in 66th place in a time of 20:03.
Congrats to Lylia for qualifying to the IHSA STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS next week in Peoria. (Keep it Going)
The guys race was just as fast as the girls race when it came to breaking course records. Only one athlete broke the course record in the guys race, “Charlie Wetzel of Normal (Community West) with a time of 15:07 who’s only a junior. Unlike the girls race, the cutoff for qualifying for the IHSA state meet next week was 13th place with a time of 15;40. Several athletes from last year that made it to the IHSA state meet didn’t make it today. These are athlete’s that have run sub 15;00 minutes. Sometimes you’re just not on or it’s not your day or the competition is really tough. Or a combination of all three. Tim ran a great race and his best of the season by far. Tim ran!!! The last half of the race, Tim was out kicking everyone to the finish. Athletes that had beat Tim in previous races, didn’t come close to Tim kick today.
Jackson ran well, but was a little off today. These things happen, and you can’t predict when they will happen and you just have to try to run through it. Jackson went out with the lead pack the first mile, however he had to run through some major back pain the rest of the race. Some athletes would have given up, but not Jackson. Jackson knew going into this race, he just had to stay close to the Quincy #1 runner, which would have put him in a very good position of making it to next week, because the two have raced against each other in two previous meets. In those meet’s Jackson lead most of those races except for the last 400 meters of the race. It didn’t happen today, but it may be from the car accident he was in a week or so ago. (A hit and run driver)
Thanks for the support group of all the teammates and parents that came to the meet to cheer on the Maroons
Link to video of race by Quincy Parent
