Cross country: Dixon girls, Sterling’s Johnson dominate at Hoover Park

STERLING – There’s nothing like a Saturday morning run through your own backyard. It certainly was fun for both Sterling junior Dale Johnson and the Dixon girls cross country team.

Johnson ran to victory in the boys race, and the Duchesses dominated their race on the way to the team title at the Class 2A Sterling Regional at Hoover Park.

[ Photos from 2A Sterling Regional cross country ]

The Sterling girls team finished fifth to also advance to next week’s Kaneland Sectional, and Dixon’s Aaron Conderman will move on after the Dukes missed out an advancing as a team.

The Duchesses were impressive in their run to the title, placing four girls in the top five and taking six of the top 12 spots. Junior Emma Smith led the way in second place in 18:33.7, coming up just short in her sprint at the end to catch winner Margaret Andrzejewski of Wheaton St. Francis (18:31.9).

“I’ve never had a good ending, and I almost caught her, then she just picked up the pace,” Smith said. “It’s awesome to win as a team. We’ve been working really hard this season, so we definitely deserve it.”

Senior Emily Conderman (19:07.4) and freshmen Kate Boss (9:15.9) and Kamryn Rogers (9:22.4) finished 3-4-5 behind Smith, and senior Hannah Steinmeyer (19:54.4) and junior Keeley Mick (20:00.4) took 11th and 12th. Senior Kait Knipple rounded out the Dixon lineup in 17th (20:24.6).

The Duchesses scored 25 points to easily outpace runner-up St. Francis (56), which placed four runners in the top 14. Burlington Central (89 points), Kaneland (109), Sterling (132) and Sycamore (135) also moved on to sectionals, as did the top five runners not on the advancing teams: Rochelle’s Yuelma Ortiz, Glenbard South’s Lauren Price and Diana Kalvelage, Freeport’s Johanna Rudolph, and IMSA’s Aashi Dharia.

“I think we did what we wanted to. I think our team did very well this year, and we ran well today,” said Conderman, who achieved her goal of a top-5 finish individually. “We’ve got some confidence to do well next week, and move on to the state meet. That’s been our goal all year. We just have to run like we did today.”

Smith said that having the race on a familiar course helped lessen the nerves and allowed her to focus on following her game plan.

“It definitely helps that you know where you’re going, and you don’t really have to think about the course. You can just run your race,” she said.

Junior Rhylee Wade led the Golden Warriors on their home course, finishing 15th in 20:08.5. While she wasn’t too happy about her performance, she was thrilled to run a regional race on a course that she knows backward and forward.

“It’s great, especially because this course, I have memorized; I honestly think I could run it blindfolded backward. I like this course a lot. It’s very simple and hard to get lost, so I think it’s nice for a lot of people. I really enjoy this course most of the time,” she said. “I ran worse today than I’ve done here before. It wasn’t my best race, but that just means I’ve got to use the anger and discouragement from this race to push myself at sectionals.”

She will have company, as Sterling’s fifth-place finish earned them a team berth next week in Maple Park. Senior Kylie Nicklaus was 26th (20:44.5), freshman Delia Block took 28th (20:50.5), sophomore Connie Ibarra placed 31st (21:06.8), freshman Laney Zuithoff was 36th (21:40.7), junior Emma Anderson finished 45th (22:45.4), and senior Megan Gingrich placed 47th (23:21.3).

In the boys race, Sterling junior Dale Johnson cruised to a winning time of 15:12.5, 10 seconds ahead of runner-up Evan Nosek of Kaneland (15:22.6). He also credited the friendly confines of Hoover Park with making it a nice, easy run through to the regional title.

“It’s fantastic, I love it here. I have so many advantages on this course, because I know it literally like the back of my hand,” he said. “I know so much about it, I know where to go, I know how it works. It’s amazing.”

His time was far from his best on the course, but he said the main goal Saturday was to get through as a team to next week’s sectional. The Warriors did just that, nabbing the sixth and final team spot with 152 points.

“Here today, it was more about place. During the season, if it’s a course I really know, I might try and go hard enough to get a PR or something. But today I was just going for place,” he said. “It definitely wasn’t my best race on this course, given I ran 20 seconds faster last time, but it felt really good, and it was mostly about placement. We’re trying to get our team to state now, and I knew we needed a good finish.”

Junior Parker Janssen finished 15th (16:26.2), while senior Thomas Holcomb took 43rd (17:27.0), sophomore Aalin Schnidt was 46th (17:35.9), and junior Jordan Britt finished 47th (17:39.6). Sophomore Parker Blakeslee placed 56th (18:04.2) and senior Conner Pham was hot on his heels in 57th (18:04.4).

Dixon just missed advancing as a team, finishing with 184 points to place seventh. Sophomore Aaron Conderman will move on to the sectionals after claiming the top individual advancer spot with a ninth-pace finish overall in 16:08.5.

“Based off the last time I ran here, I was a second or two slower, but overall, I felt pretty good,” he said. “I’ve been sick the last couple of weeks, and it’s starting to clear up, so I’m feeling good.”

Conderman said the Dukes were in the same mode as Sterling, fighting for places rather than times to try and move on as a team. But it ultimately didn’t work for Dixon, and Conderman will run on his own next weekend.

Dixon’s other runners were seniors Jacksen Ortgiesen (31st, 17:02.1) and Jack Johnson (37th, 17:16.5), freshman Westin Conatser (48th, 17:43.1), sophomore Hayden Fulton (59th, 18:25.5), and freshmen Kohlson Stumpf (62nd, 18:57.4) and Noah Terviel (64th, 19:24.2).