There was a bit of a different feel to the Twilight XC Invite this season

The invite ended up being held at Settler’s Hill Golf Course in Geneva rather than at the original course at Naperville North due to a turf construction project on the football field, where the racers would usually finish.

But despite the change in scenery, both races ended up having a few repeat champions, with Downers Grove North senior Philip Cupial taking the individual crown once again in the boys race and Sandwich senior Sunny Weber taking the girls race in dominant fashion to repeat her title.

Cupial’s victory came in a very similar fashion to his victory from a season ago.

After coming through the two-mile mark alongside Yorkville senior Owen Horeni and Neuqua Valley junior Gudauskas, the Trojans senior made his race-winning move with 200 meters to go, surging ahead to defend his title in 14:34.38, breaking the course record by five seconds.

“There were a lot of different thoughts going through my head at the end,” Cupial said. “I didn’t really know where I was at, but when I saw the finish right there, I knew I had to start turning it up. I just relied on my kick and kind of booked it.”

The battle behind Cupial ended up being a true kick to the finish, with Horeni (14:40.09) just getting past Gudauskas (14:40.34) at the line to take second place.

“I was out hard because I knew I needed to be since the second mile would be hard,” Horeni said. “But the second mile didn’t hit me as hard as I thought, so I led for a bit. But once those two passed me, I knew I could hold on, and I trusted my 800-meter speed there at the end.”

The Trojans ended up defending their team title as well, with the team finished with 53 points for a 36-point victory over second-place Lane.

But what Downers North coach John Sipple was most happy about with the team’s performance was the team’s ability to stay close, with five guys finishing within just 50 seconds of Cupial on the night.

“That’s really tough to do because of how fast he is,” Sipple said. “Usually we get a little more strung out when it’s like that, but the guys were running the tangents and doing the good things. It’s been a few weeks since we’re really been racing, so this is a really good one to get us rolling into championship season.”

While the boys race for the individual title took a few miles to pan out, the girls race was more-or-less decided within the first half mile.

Weber, who won last year’s Twilight XC Invite by just over 20 seconds, surged out ahead early and never looked back, taking the win in 16:23.16, nearly 30 seconds ahead of Downers North sophomore Macy Ermitage.

“I’ve never ran on this course before so I knew that it was going to be a different experience, especially with the hills,” said Weber, who also broke the course record by 15 seconds with her win. “But my main mentality was knowing that this course was going to help mentally prepare me. So whenever I hit the dark spots by myself, I wanted to stay mentally engaged and just keep telling myself that I can do it.”

The more intriguing part of the race came in the team standings. With a mile left to go in the race, Batavia found itself in fifth place in the team standings and 34 points away from Naperville North for the lead.

But by the end of the race and the points totaled, the Bulldogs ended up vaulting their way up to the top of the standings, finishing with 112 points for a six-point win over Lincoln-Way Central.

“We knew we were moving, you just kind of hope to shake up that top five based on where we were,” Bulldogs coach Chad Hillman said. “We just moved way better than you think we would in a mile. They just did a good job sticking with it.

“We’re getting there as a team and they’re starting to feel it. We’ve been getting better as a team each week and we’re just getting it going.”

Leading the charge for the Bulldogs was junior Avery Hacker, who ended up passing Plainfield North junior Marlie Czarniewski (fourth, 17:06.99) after being 10 seconds behind her at the second mile mark to take third in 16:55.83, going under the 17-minute mark for just the second time in her high school career.

“I just wanted to keep in contact with (Czarniewski and Ermitage) for the first mile because when we raced two weeks ago, I kind of lost track of them early,” Hacker said. “I just wanted to keep with them in the first half and then up the pace in the second half. I’m better at running the second half of my race fast, so just keeping with that mentality really helped with that.”

Plainfield North ended up rounding out the top three in the team standings, finishing with 124 points to edge out the Huskies, who had 126 points for fourth.