Devils' Kuckertz surges, wins Silver Meet

October 18, 2007
By Bill Stone | SPORTS WRITER

Throughout most of Saturday's West Suburban Conference Silver Division Meet, Hinsdale Central junior Elaine Kuckertz was satisfied with a solid cross country race.

With about one mile left, she decided to make it memorable.

Kuckertz put on a ferocious kick, passed Oak Park sophomore Katherine Rack 10 yards from the finish and won the 2.85-mile race to put an exclamation point on the Red Devils' victory at East End Park in Elmhurst.

Kuckertz's 16 minutes, 29.4 seconds edged Rack by .7 of one second. Hinsdale Central coach Mark McCabe said Kuckertz ran a 5:45 final mile after trailing by 10 seconds after two miles and 3.5 seconds with 150 meters left.

"It's very cool to win it, and I'm really glad that I did pick her off. I'd feel really bad about myself because I knew that I could," Kuckertz said. "Most of the race I wasn't really thinking of winning. I was kind of settling back and I was OK with that. When I came around a turn, the official said we had one lap to go and I assumed that meant we went in the chute (soon) so I started picking it up. It paid off because then I got into a better position."

The Red Devils (37 points), the defending Class AA state champs and top-ranked Class 3A team in the Illinois Cross Country Coaches poll, held off No. 6 Lyons Township (44) and No. 10 York (60), two teams they will see at the Proviso West Regional at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20.

Juniors Roey Hines (4th, 16:46), Heather Stevens (9th, 17:08.5) and Lauren Zumbach (10th, 17:10.1) and senior Emily Cleary (13th, 17:17.6) also were all-conference with top-16 finishes, and sophomore Katie Kummerer was 28th (18:00.1). Hines, Zumbach and Cleary are three-time all-conference runners.

After going 6-0 in Silver duals, the Red Devils won their sixth straight overall conference title and fourth straight overall title outright. They also swept all three titles for the second time in the last three years.

"Winning conference is really important to us. It's definitely second to winning state for us," Hines said. "This one was pretty exciting (for me) because it's fun to be a junior and an upperclassman. It's a nice feeling to be like a leader on the team than an underclassman, following."

With Saturday's great competition and optimal course and weather conditions, Kuckertz and the No. 2-5 finishers, including Hines, shattered the former course record of 16:54.

Kuckertz is only the program's fifth individual conference champ and the first since Sandra Sutor in 1993. Although she was an all-state ninth in 2006, Kuckertz won a major varsity race for the first time.

"Elaine has a very good sense of what her capabilities are. While it was a big gap to make up, I think her competitors have learned never to count her out," McCabe said. "She's still learning how to race and she learned a lot Saturday, in terms of not losing too much contact. She was able to come back, but she realized that won't necessarily always be the case."

With what McCabe called "the best race of her life," Stevens was all-conference for the first time after taking 18th last season.

"I wanted to have a good race and that kind of meant getting all-conference," Stevens said. "I felt really good at the beginning, which was surprising. It's hard for me to go out strong. Even after I finished, I felt I could have pushed harder, which means there's more there."

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