By Eric Hofmann

September 5, 2015

This weekend brought the traditional first big meet of season in the Chicago area – the Hornet-Red Devil Invitational in Hinsdale.  The boys’ varsity race kicked of the meet, the varsity races being contested first with the intention of getting the longest races in before the heat of the day.  It was a tightly contested affair with no gaps of more than a few seconds from the leaders through the entire field.  The biggest meet of the weekend in Illinois featured such top ranked teams as Neuqua Valley, Hinsdale Central, Hinsdale South, and Stillwater, who traveled four hundred miles from Minnesota to compete.  

Blake Evertson came away the victor in a time of 15:01 for three miles.  He put five seconds on his next closest competitor in the last half mile.  An exciting display was put on at the finish by the rest of the top five.  Evertson employed a strategy of surging at points during the race so gauge the energy lever of his competitors.  Evertson’s Hinsdale Central teammate Chris Brenk moved into the final stretch in fourth place and then passed Neuqua Valley’s Connor Horn and Scott Anderson to take second.  Roman Drabchuk of Hinsdale South was fifth on his home course.  The deep field produced thirty times under 16:00 on a humid day and a course featuring two creek crossings.

            Neuqua Valley lived up to their status as the team favorite.  After Horn and Anderson, Jake McEneaney, Jackson Jett, and Dominic Dina completed the scoring, all finishing in the top ten.  Hinsdale Central was the second place team.  Brenk, a senior, is optimistic for the team’s outlook going forward.  He says the Red Devils have three other runners who are right with him on a consistent basis in training.   Interestingly, Evertson and Brenk have finished back-to-back three consecutive years in their home invitational.  As sophomores, they finished one-two in the race for their grade level, then third and fourth on the varsity level last year.  Brenk said in today’s tactical race, it was great having his teammate in the front pack and “didn’t want to let him down or myself down.”  He came to the final incline where he moved up two places thinking about the numerous times he has practiced for that finishing kick, with Katherine Legge Park being one of Hinsdale Central’s primary training venues.  Finishing second behind Evertson was, according to Brenk, “like déja vu.”  Being both competitors and teammates, theirs is friendly rivalry.

            While a closely bunched pack led the boys’ race, the girls’ race was at the other end of the spectrum.  Lindsey Payne of Glenbard West put on a dominating performance, opening a gap on the field in the first third of the race and increasing its size from there.  Her finish time of 16:41 came within two seconds on the course record set last year by her teammate Lindsay Graham.  Having finished fifth in the 2014 class 3A state meet, Payne was far from an unknown, but she appears to have made big strides even since then. 

 She bested by forty seconds a very strong field that included last year’s state third placer Kelley O’Brien (Palatine).  Emily Shelton led Minooka to a team victory with her second place finish.  Shelton, a sophomore, was Minooka’s third to fourth runner last cross country season, and, after a 3200m conference championship and today’s performance, seems to have established herself as a frontrunner now for one of the top teams in Illinois.  O’Brien crossed the line third, followed by Ashley Tutt and Mackenzie Callahan, both of Minooka.

            Minooka’s strong trio up front was bolstered by sixteenth place Morgan Crouch and Emily Ellis in forty-fifth to take a three point team win over Glenbard West.  Glenbard West is without last year’s state champion Lindsay Graham, who is taking the season off to recover from injury.  Payne feels the responsibility to step up on the course, and credits the team’s seniors for “taking the reins” in leading the team.  Minooka coach Kevin Gummerson was pleased with his team’s result, but acknowledges a great deal can happen between now and November and notes that a three point win can be turned around by various factors.  Gummerson, at his Minooka post since 1999, also coaches the boys’ team and considered their fourth place team finish the best in all the years they have come to Hinsdale.  He also said the weather was not nearly as big a factor as some had feared and said it may have actually been one of the nicer days for running he has experience at this meet – the temperature remained in the seventies throughout the meet thanks to cloud cover, though humidity was high.

            Many of the competitors in Hinsdale today are sure to come head to head with each other again this year with many more big meets to come.  For now, the high school cross country season is certainly underway in the State of Illinois..