Doings

Hines, Hinsdale enjoy dirty fun at NTN

December 7, 2006
By Bill Stone | SPORTS WRITER

Roey Hines and her teammates completed the greatest girls cross country season in Hinsdale Central history with one more first Saturday.

The Hinsdale Cross Country Club, comprised of Hinsdale Central's lineup that captured the program's first state championship Nov. 4, finished 17th in its first appearance at the third annual Nike Team Nationals in Portland, Ore.

"To go out there and see all of the these teams that have been through the same amount of work and put in the same amount of effort you have, it's just encouraging and makes me love running even more," said Hines, a Hinsdale Central sophomore who finished a team-best 23rd.

"The greatest part was meeting the other teams. We got a lot of free time to talk. We got to meet professional runners, which was fun. As far as the race goes, it was really muddy, but it was a blast. The theme for the weekend was get dirty. The course itself was fairly easy. But the mud made it extremely hard and difficult."

Hines covered the 5,000-meter course (3.1 miles) in 20 minutes, 24.9 seconds, followed by sophomores Lauren Zumbach (52nd, 21:01.1) and Elaine Kuckertz (62nd, 21:10), seniors Gina Kapusta (71st, 21:23.6) and Jenny Laser (99th, 21:58.3), junior Emily Cleary (124th, 22:45.8), who battled bronchitis during the week, and sophomore Heather Stevens (128th, 22:55.5). Senior alternate Emily Kane was 98th (22:24.9) in the open girls race.

Hinsdale (307 points), which was only 16 points from 14th place, tied with Concord (Calif.) for 16th but was 17th based on a sixth-runner tiebreaker.

Twenty teams were invited with the top two teams in each of the nation's eight regions automatically awarded berths. After winning the Illinois High School Association state meet, Hinsdale Central finished ranked No. 2 in the Midwest Region to Westfield (Ind.), which beat the Red Devils 62-102 for the Culver (Ind.) Academies Invite title Sept. 23. Westfield (210 points) was seventh Saturday.

"We didn't do as well as we hoped. But it was just the beginning. Now we know what to expect," said Kuckertz, who was an all-state ninth at the state meet.

"I liked getting all of the free stuff (from Nike), and after the race was a lot of fun, too, because we didn't have to worry about the race anymore and we could hang out with the other teams. I never really knew (cross country) was so popular across the country. If you're a runner, it makes you want to keep running. If I weren't a runner, I wanted to become one because of this weekend. I really, really want to go next year so I'm going to keep working hard."

Because IHSA rules prohibit coaches from coaching their teams out of season, the girls practiced for the NTN and competed with parent Jere Hines coaching them and parents Mark Zumbach and Joe Cleary assisting. Hinsdale Central girls cross country coach Mark McCabe did attend the NTN as a spectator.

The Hinsdale runners received uniforms for the race in Hinsdale Central's red-and-white school colors and sweats and shoes courtesy of Nike.

The race is held on the same infield of a horse track but the course is altered each year. Saturday's race presented a new challenge for the Hinsdale runners -- bails of hay that had to be cleared four times.

"It was hard to go over the hay bails, but it was kind of fun, something different," Hines said. "Our goal is always to be the best we can be. We went into the race thinking we were able to race with any of the teams there. I think just that experience to know what to expect definitely helped. There was so much going on that it was hard to focus on the race itself. If we went again, we'll try to focus on the race, which we did, but I think it was tough not to have gone there before."

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