Outstanding!
Granite City IL – When you travel south, one would think it would be warmer, however not today in Granite City. The temps were close to freezing, however that didn’t faze the Maroons. Last week it was water/flooding on the Minooka cross country course. Today the Maroons were attempting to make a bid for a chance to run at the state meet next week in Peoria Illinois. Both teams ran awesome, not backing down from the competition. Almost every athlete ran to a Personal Best today and that’s all you can ask for from your athletes. When they go out and run faster then they have ever done before in their lifetime, one has nothing more to be then proud of the team! The Maroons did have one athlete that did qualify for the state meet next week, and that was Andrew Ellison. Andrew ran to a personal best time of 15:24 and a 14th place in the race. This was a -30 second drop in time – wow
Lets take a look at this race: On the girls side of things: In this sectional only five teams can advance to the state meet and three of those five teams came from the regional that the Maroons ran in last week. Overall the Maroon are a very young team, and most likely the youngest team in this sectional meet to compete. Now look at the times that the Maroons ran: Lylia Gomez: 45th Place, 19:01 and a Personal Best by 45 seconds. Kiliegh Burge: 50th Place, 19:18 and a Personal Best by 31 seconds. Maddie Lodico: 62nd Place and a Personal Best by 2 seconds. Alexis Wolf 73rd Place, 19:59. Emily Lopez 74th Place and a Personal Best by 51 seconds. Grace Vinzant: 76th Place, 20:07 and a Personal Best by -29 seconds. Grace Shelton: 86th Place, 20:32 and a Personal Best by -28 seconds. This is awesome and next year the team will have the potential to be even better. This is only if they put in the work over the summer as a team:)
Now for the Boys:) Personal Best across the board for the boys!!*** Leading the team: Andrew Ellison: 13th Place 15:24 and a Personal Best by -30 seconds. Tim Wolf: 54th Place 16:12 and a Personal Best by -22 seconds. Jackson McClellan: 69th Place, 16:37 and a Personal Best by 27 seconds. Nikola Stojanovic: 80th Place 16:48, Ryan Lodico: 84th Place, 16:53, Michael Aumuller: 95th Place, 17:07 and a Personal Best by 22 seconds. Spencer Clapper: 96th Place, 17:07 with a Personal Best of -17 seconds. This was the first time this season that the Maroons had everyone on the same page. The team ran great today!!! This sectional is very tough and it may have one of the teams that will win the state championship this year. Moving forward the Maroons have the talent to challenge again next year for a chance to make it to the state championships. The team must put in the summer miles, and train together. All teams must have a little luck. Sometimes a team may go through a injury bug. The Maroons had the injury bug this season, and if not, it would have been very bad news for the competition this season.
