Sycamore, DeKalb happy with Invite
BY STEVE NITZ – sports@daily-chronicle.com
MALTA – Desa Diedrich was so tired after finishing her race at the Sycamore Invite, that she fell down.
That’s understandable, as the DeKalb junior and first-year cross country runner, who ran some two-mile races in track, was running her first three-mile race.
“My legs were just absolutely exhausted,” Diedrich said.
Diedrich was no slouch at the invite. She took sixth place with a time of 20:17.98, one spot behind Sycamore’s Tessa Strack (20:01.01). Wheaton St. Francis’ Kelly McShea finished first (19:01.64), despite taking a wrong turn at one point.
“I was happy with (Diedrich). She ran a really smart race,” DeKalb coach Mike Wolf said. “She put herself in position early. Stepping up to three (miles) is a little bit of a change for her.”
Diedrich started off well, but lost some ground as the race went on. Being able to pace herself is something she knows she’ll get better at as the year goes on.
“I did pretty well for the most part. For my first race my time was pretty good, top 10,” she said. “Cross country’s a lot harder than track so it’s definitely a lot more work that you have to put in. The distance is a lot harder, so I have to pace myself. As the season progresses I think I’ll be able to handle the longer distance better.”
Irisa Hecott had the Barbs’ next best time (22:08.22), finishing in 18th place. Alex Wade (24:47.94) took 30th for DeKalb, who didn’t have enough runners to qualify as a team, as Wolf likes to keep all of his younger runners at the frosh/soph level the first few races of the season.
Sycamore took third place as a team, two spots behind first-place Dixon.
Maggie Lalowski (20:59.91) finished in 11th place for the Spartans, with Corinne Ruff (21:59.47) taking 16th. Morgan Morreale (22:14.60) was 20th while Shekinah Bergmann (23:04.98) came in 25th.
In the boys race, Sycamore finished third while DeKalb was sixth. Riley Powers was Sycamore’s top finisher, coming in 12th place with a time of 17:27.25.
“I thought it was really important for our team to get out like this. We’ve got a lot of younger guys out,” Powers said. “It was overall I think a good experience for them, coming to a first meet like this and performing the way they did. Especially in this heat, it worked out really well.”
Zach Aase (17:44.65) finished 14th for the Spartans, with Mark Stice (18:22.77) taking 20th. Henry Weberpal (19:21.81) was 29th while Stephen Grimson (19:32.80) was 32nd.
Matt Phanenbecker (19:34.56) was DeKalb’s top finisher, taking 34th place. Chris Meyers (20:03.68) finished 41st for the Barbs.
Defending Class 2A state champion Belvidere North ran away with the title, as four of its runners finished in the top five. Paul Zeman, who finished first at the Class 2A state meet a year ago, had no problem winning his first race of the year, finishing 38 seconds ahead of Sandwich’s Mike Gaydos, who came in second.
“I used to run with a lot of those guys in club,” Powers said. “They’ve got a really good team this year and they had a good team last year. They didn’t lose a whole lot of people, they’ll be great this year.”
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