High school cross country: Ferrero sisters lead Crystal Lake Central into postsesaon

Late in the summer, Crystal Lake Central’s girls cross country team was about to run a 2-mile time trial, a way for Tigers coach Brett Willhoit to gauge where his runners were at to start the season.

As Willhoit walked to the start with junior Annie Ferrero, one of his captains, she told her coach, “I’m not ready for my sister to start beating me yet.”

Annie knew her freshman sister Hadley would soon be the fastest on the team. In fact, locally, she has been the fastest on anyone’s team this season. Hadley Ferrero won the individual title at the Fox Valley Conference Cross Country Meet on Saturday by 16 seconds over two-time defending champ Bella Gonzalez of Crystal Lake South.

On that day, Annie and Hadley ran together, side-by-side. At the McHenry County Meet to start the season, Hadley ran in the freshman-sophomore race. But since then, she has taken off, and Annie has no problems with her little sister beating her, and everyone else.

“Because she deserves it,” Annie Ferrero said. “She works for it, she’s fast. She’s a little beast. She just kills it out there. It’s awesome.”

Central will run at the Class 2A Woodstock Regional at 9 a.m. on Saturday at Emricson Park. The boys race follows at 10.

Woodstock hosts most of the area’s Class 2A teams, while four Class 1A teams will run at the Winnebago Regional and Class 3A teams are dispersed among three regionals. Class 1A regionals send the top seven teams and top five runners not on those teams on to the sectionals. In Classes 2A and 3A, six teams and five runners advance.

Central is blessed with three Ferrero sisters on its team, a rarity, especially since there are no twins. Annie is a junior, Hope is a sophomore and Hadley is a freshman. John and Karen Ferrero also have a seventh-grade daughter, Skyler, who runs at Bernotas Middle School, so there could be three Ferreros running together for the next two years after this as well.

The girls do multiple sports, most notably soccer, when they are not running.

“(Annie and Hope) kind of taught me things when I was younger, and they’ve been really supportive,” Hadley Ferrero said. “That’s been really nice.”

During the summer, the Ferreros usually join the rest of the Central girls for their daily training runs. In the offseason, they have their own sibling group.

“Sometimes during the winter we’ll all run together,” Hope Ferrero said. “I also run with our little sister. It’s really nice running with them. They’re always there to push me to do better. It’s a thing we do together.”

Annie, Hope and Hadley ran together for one year at Bernotas.

“Also, (junior) Gwen Brickey is our cousin, so it’s like we have a whole family,” Annie Ferrero said. “I think (Hadley) would have gotten into running whether we were or not because she is fast, but having siblings helps a lot.”

Willhoit is impressed with Hadley Ferrero’s ability to run smart at her age. For the FVC Meet, Central’s girls ran the McHenry Township Park course during the week to become familiar with it.

“We came out here and talked about the places to go and she did her job,” Willhoit said. “She picked her spots and ran.”

Hadley Ferrero started her varsity career by winning the Wauconda Invitational the week after the county meet. The only meet she did not win was the Palatine Invitational, a meet loaded with some of the best Class 3A teams in the state. She took 17th in that race.

“A normal freshman goes through a lot of lumps and learning lessons the hard way,” Willhoit said. “That’s been smoothed out with Annie and Hope. They give good advice.”