St. Charles East comes from behind to win at Peoria Central Invitational; Stromsland runs solo 16:46 in 1A/2A Girls; Lange, Jortberg pull away for individual wins

By Michael Newman

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Peoria – If there was a survival of the fittest at Saturday’s Peoria Invitational, it would have been the course at Detweiller Park. There were doubts that this meet would be held last weekend when more than six inches of rain flooded the Park included the triangle portion of the course.

Meet Director Brien Dunphy had no doubts that this meet would be held. A heroic effort by the Peoria Park District assured that this meet would be run off.

The course was in near pristine condition and the weather matched the course with ideal temperatures in the mid-50’s.

The 3A Boys race was expected to be the spotlight race in this meet and it failed to disappoint between the top two teams in the state St. Charles East and Sandburg.

The last time that the two teams faced each other, St. Charles East pushed the pace while Sandburg efforted to catch the Saints. It was a different story in this race.

The pace was swift with Sandburg’s Ben and Will Giblin along with Lyons Township’s Jack Ehlert leading the pack going through the first 880 in 2:13 and 4:42 at the mile. Sandburg had control of the race early with their top five runners all in the first ten spots.

St. Charles East’s pack, led by Bob Liking and Aidan King, had a five second split between their scorers starting in 15th place passing the mile in 4:49. Their coach Chris Bosworth kept yelling to the group “You guys look great. Stick with the race plan.”

The race plan was simple. Get comfortably through the first mile and then make your move in the triangle portion of the course. The Saints did just that.

Joey Kasch of Maine South, who was in the front group along with Huntley’s Ian Geisler, got a good view of the tactics by the state’s top ranked team.

“Liking just blew by me in the triangle,” Kasch said. “It kind of spooked me the way he came by me so fast.”

Liking had a 20-meter lead when he passed two-miles in 9:29 covering the second mile in 4:40. Teammate Micah Wilson had joined what was now the chase pack.

Liking came up to the finish and it looked like the second mile surge had paid dividends but also had taken effect on Liking. Kasch, just like last week at Palatine when he closed on Josh Methner at the end, was closing in on Liking but ran out of real estate. Liking crossed the line in 14:23.2 three seconds ahead of Kasch. Geisler was next in 14:34 followed by Normal West’s Charlie Wetzel (14:37.9).

The plan paid off for St. Charles East as they had five runners under 15-minutes in winning the 3A Boys team championship with 41 points. Wilson followed as the team’s second runner finishing fifth with King (9th), Loomis (12th), and Schildmeyer (14th) following. The split on that group was 33 seconds.

Sandburg was a solid second with 72 points. Will Giblin and his brother Ben finished seventh and eighth. Ismail Tineh (15th), Sam Rodriguez (20), and Griffin Lehnhardt (22) followed. Their top five split in this race was only 21 seconds.

Lyons Township, led by Jack Ehlert’s sixth-place finish, scored 158 points to finish third. Maine South (211 points) and Glenbrook South (253 points) finished fourth and fifth.

Other Meet Highlights

1A/2A Girls – Brooke Stromsland of Lakes Community went through the first mile in 5:24 with Urbana’s Olivia Rosenstein. When the two runners entered the triangle, the action happened again.

“She made her move just as we entered,” Rosenstein said. “I tried to stay with her, but she just had too much.”

This might have been a preview of what we could see Wednesday at the Naperville Twilight Invitational. Stromsland was by herself in the second half of the race crossing the line in 16:46 winning by 40 seconds ahead of Rosenstein (17:26). Dunlap’s Saniya Mathew led the next pack as she finished third (17:41).

Crystal Lake South defended their meet title using a fifth-place finish from Bella Gonzalez and tenth-place finish from Mackenzie Aldridge to win with 145 points. Dunlap scored 151 points to finish second followed by Highland (185 points), Chatham-Glenwood (201 points) along with Normal University and Fenwick who both scored 207 points.

1A/2A Boys – The last time that Morton’s Sam Lange had raced was on this course in winning the 2A race at the First to the Finish Invitational. The past two meets on Morton’s schedule have been cancelled due to weather. The rust did not show on Lange as he pulled away from the race pack to easily win the individual race in 14:48. It was the same time that he had in winning the previous Detweiller race. Wilson Georges of Limestone ran 15:05 to finish second ahead of Waterloo’s Eli Ward (15:12).

As Lange made it look easy in the individual race, so di Dixon’s team. The Dukes easily won with 68 points led by top ten finishes from Brock Dregenberg (5th) and Christian Seagren (8th). Their top five split was only 38 seconds. Springfield (202 points), Metamora (218 points), and Benet Academy (229 points) were the next teams.

3A Girls – Fremd moved in the final mile of the race to make things a little closer. All in all, Prospect dominated the team aspect of this race placing five runners in the top 20 scoring only 58 points for the win. Fremd only had a 16 second split on their runners from 10th to 21 to finish second (80 points). Huntley scored 89 points to finish third.

After a sluggish 5:42 opening mile, Glenbrook South’s Kate Jortberg pulled away from the pack to win for the second year in a row. Her time of 17:16 was 12 seconds faster than race runner-up Audrey Ginsberg of Prospect. Edwardsville freshman Riley Knoyle ran 17:37 to finish third.