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PEORIA NOTRE DAME
INVITATIONAL RECAP
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Photos
We look forward to the Peoria Notre
Dame Invitational each year for a number of reasons. One
is the opportunity to go down to Detweiler Park and race
on the State Meet course. Another is that gives us the
chance to race against many of the best teams and
individual runners in the state. It’s a great midseason
test for our team. And finally, it’s a really fun trip
for the girls. We leave at 5am, have luxury travel
accommodations courtesy of Julian and get to spend the
whole day together at sunny Detweiler Park. It’s cross
country at its best!
The Varsity girls placed 1st in the 46 team field for
the second year in a row. In another close battle with
Stagg, we came out on top 126-137. Completing the Top 5
were Wheaton Warrenville South, York and Neuqua Valley.
Elaine Kuckertz led the way for the Lady Devils,
finishing 6th overall in 17:27 in a field that featured
six of the top ten individual finishers from last year’s
State Meet. Lauren Zumbach had a fine race as well,
finishing 15th in 17:57, and she was followed closely by
Roey Hines in 25th in 18:13. Katie Kummmerer had a
breakthrough race, finishing 38th in 18:21, a sign of
even greater things to come. We packed it up with Emily
Cleary, Grace Hucek and Heather Stevens close behind
Katie, as they crossed the line 44th, 45th and 54th.
Grace took home the trophy as the Athlete of the Meet
for her race on Saturday. The race, as always, served as
a good midseason checkpoint, showing us many good
things, as well as what we need to work on over the next
seven weeks to be the best we can be on November 3rd
when we return to Peoria.
The F/S girls probably learn more from this meet than
any of the girls as many of them are racing here for the
first time. The F/S placed 6th overall in the 33 team
field and had some fine performances. Hailey Krzyston
and Colleen Leahy continued their excellent progress,
leading the way in 4th and 15th places respectively,
with times of 18:49 and 19:13. Rita Kuckertz was next
for the Lady Devils, finishing 29th in 19:37. Nicole
Lang, Lauren Emery and Brianna Lynch completed the
scoring for the Devils, finishing 69th, 82nd and 153rd
in the 328 runner field with times of 20:14, 20:27 and
21:47. Hailey was honored as the F/S Athlete of the
Meet.
While The JV competition is a non-scoring team race, we
score the race on the way home anyway. The JV Lady
Devils scored 70 point to outpace second place
Chatham-Glenwood by 10 points. The JV girls had an
outstanding team performance. Niamh McCarthy was the
overall champion, winning handily in a time of 19:06.
Catherine Bruns earned the Athlete of the Meet award for
her 8th place finish in 19:40. Allie Emery, Victoria
Glatz and Maddie Metcalf were next in times of 19:54,
20:05 and 20:10. Margaret Cavenagh and Corine Samaras
rounded out the Red Devil scoring, finishing 41st and
67th in times of 20:30 and 20:44.
This past week was a productive one for our team. We had
good meet performances while still going through our
heaviest training period. This gives us the confidence
that when we back off on our training later in the
season, good things will happen! This week we face York
and Glenbard West on Thursday at KLM. The first race
begins at 4:30. Then on Saturday the Varsity and most of
the rest of the girls that raced in Peoria head to
Culver Academy in Indiana to face 3 of Indiana’s top 4
ranked teams and the Ohio defending state champion. The
rest of the team will head to Glen Ellyn to compete in
the Glenbard West Hilltopper Invtational. Details
regarding both of these meets are posted elsewhere on
this site.
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