Story: DGN at Palatine Invite (varsity)

Downers Grove North freshman Emma Moravec was handling the pressures of her first race at Peoria’s Detweiller Park Sept. 21, but her stomach couldn’t.

Moravec momentarily even stopped during the 3.0-mile race on the annual site of the state meet as the Trojans made their annual September overnight visit to compete at the Richard Spring Invitational. 

“I usually eat a different breakfast that what they had at the hotel so my stomach was kind of upset,” Moravec said. “It mostly just started during the race. It was really on the last mile. I saw my teammates go by and I knew that I had to keep going for them.”

In her first invitational since then at the Palatine Invitational Saturday, Sept. 28, Moravec didn’t let anything stop her. She had arguably her best race of the season so far as she finished 39th and the team’s No. 2 finisher at Deer Grove East Forest Preserve.

Sophomore Grace Maletich was 22th (18:20.5 for 3.0 miles) and earned an individual medal for a top-30 finish.

Moravec (18:51.1), who also broke 19:00, was followed by sophomore Kaitlyn Bonfield (47th, 19:01.1), senior Katie Portman (86th, 19:46.5), freshman Hannah Thomas (91st, 19:52.4) and seniors Stephanie Urbancik (119th, 20:33.3) and Meghan Bonfield (131st, 20:45.5). 

“I would say I’ve been pretty consistent throughout the season, but this was definitely one of my best races,” said Moravec, whose Peoria time still was 19:00.

“It was really hot and there were a lot of hills on this course. (But) I ran pretty well, I thought. I’m feeling pretty confident. I’m just ready to go in for the next race and run hard.”
As a team, the state-ranked Trojans (283 points) expressed disappointed overall, but they still finished 10th out of 27 teams and were the sixth-best Illinois team out of 23. The only Class 3A teams to beat them were champion Palatine (106), Wheaton Warrenville South (4th, 157), Lyons Township (7th, 253) and Barrington (8th, 257). Two-time defending Class 2A state champion Yorkville (200) was sixth. 

A combination of Homecoming week, a competitive West Suburban Conference Silver Division dual meet Thursday, Sept. 26, and rising temperatures combined for several frustrating performances. On Thursday, the Trojans traveled to Lyons Township and lost to the host Lions 26-29 while beating York 20-36.

The Trojans had their Silver dual debut Sept. 19, just before departing for Peoria the next afternoon. Opponent Oak Park-River Forest kept out its top runners, saving them for the Richard Spring Invite, and the dual turned into a glorified workout.

“This was the first time we had a Thursday meet and then a Saturday meet and that was really rough for our team,” Portman said. “Emma Moravec had a really good race. But I feel like everyone else it was just hot and just didn’t have a good day today. I think I could have gone faster.”

Maletich felt the fatigue as her race progressed. She was battling for fifth at one mile in 5:40, the same pace she had in Peoria en route to a personal-best 17:44.

This time, Maletich said she couldn’t sustain it. She still was only 6.2 seconds from 14th. 

“I felt like the whole race was tough. The first mile was OK and then after that, it just all fell apart. It just needs to get better,” Maletich said. “I just felt so sore. I just need to push through it and not give up during the race. I just need to keep doing that (sub-6:00 pace) all through the race.”

“Today, I think we sort of just had a bad day as a team mentally,” Portman added. “We didn’t push through when we should have. Just knowing that we ran a race Thursday, even if we couldn’t feel it, knowing it in our heads just psyched us out. I know it did for me.” 

Senior Whitney O’Bryan of Daviess County (Ky.) won in 17:20.6 with Buffalo Grove sophomore Kaitlyn Ko (17:25.6) and Yorkville sophomore Skyler Bollinger (17:31.0) second and third. 

At last year’s state meet, Ko was 22nd in 3A and Bollinger was third in 2A. At the season-opening Fenton Invite Sept. 7, Maletich was fifth and 46 seconds behind the first-place Ko.

Although Moravec did not have her best feeling race in Peoria, she learned and that helped her run even better Saturday.  One important aspect was that the Richard Spring Invite field for the varsity race consisted of 58 teams and 497 finishers, more than double the Palatine Invite. 

The team boxes at the starting line, though, were just as compacted, if not worse Saturday. Moravec and Thomas generally have run similar times, but Moravec said Thomas started behind her in the box and she never saw her.

“Peoria definitely prepared me for a bigger race and this felt easier than that,” Moravec said. “(Still) there were so many people in the race that I couldn’t see anyone (from my team). I was just running for DGN.”   

For Portman, this season also is a learning experience. This is her first competing on the varsity for invitationals after being one of the team’s stronger junior varsity runners last season.

At the 2012 Palatine Invite, Portman was ninth and the team’s No. 3 finisher in the JV Open race, which was 2.5 miles. This year, that race was increased to 3.0 miles.

“It’s a lot different to run varsity,” Portman said. “Last year running JV, it was a lot of fun because there were like no expectations for me to do that well. But this year the races probably aren’t as fun, but I get better times and I feel better about myself so I guess that’s what really matters.” 

In the Silver triangular, Maletich (18:02 for 2.96 miles) and Kaitlyn Bonfield (18:15) finished third and fourth behind LT senior Lexy Rudofski (17:50) and junior Katie Hamor (17:59), who finished 24th and 41st, respectively, at Palatine.

Moravec was sixth (18:29), five seconds behind York’s top finisher, junior Dayle Mueller. Meghan Bonfield (18:44) and Urbancik (18:58) were ninth and 12th with Thomas (19:03) and Portman (19:32) 15th and 20th.

(Frosh-soph, Open race stories to come…)

-- by Bill Stone