IHSA State Final Recap: Girls Finish 22nd in 4th Trip to Detweiller in 5 Seasons

Saturday, November 8 2014 - IHSA Class 1A State Finals

IHSA Class 1A Girls State Final

Detweiller Park, Peoria

Saturday, November 8, 2014

WESTMONT LADIES FINISH 22^nd IN DEEP CLASS 1A FIELD TO CAP AWESOME SEASON

On Saturday morning, our ladies kicked off the state meet festivities by running in the first race of the day at 9:00 AM. They had earned the right to run at Detweiller Park, and they were ready to go. Sure, there were some butterflies and some nervousness, but it was time to run the race we’d been working all season long for. Everything that we had done this season was about to culminate in this one race that would last about twenty minutes to cap our journey that began over the summer.

How did we get here? Our journey began as we had a great summer of summer running, putting in tons of great mileage beginning on June 9^th. Two months later, on August 13^th, we began practices. Over the course of the season, we dealt with injuries as we always do. We had our ups and downs – but far more ups than downs.

We welcomed a large group of freshmen – seven of them, in fact. Enough so that they could run as a complete team by themselves! This year, we welcomed Hannah Abbatacola, Lily Arndt, Ashley Eiermann, Emilia Maslany, Halle Nash, Peyton Nash, and Lisa Niemiec into the Westmont Cross Country family.

We also welcomed back four returning veterans: Seniors Imogene Asa and Victoria Thomas, junior Brittany Eiermann, and sophomore Michelle Launi, all of whom were on our state meet team last season and eager to return to Detweiller Park again this year.

In addition, we also welcomed two new runners to cross country this year: Michelle Gorman and Amanda Yates.

In total, we had thirteen ladies running cross country this season. It’s been a long time since we had a group that big. And all of them were ready to get the season started.

Practices got started, and then almost instantly, the school year began. Our varsity returnees were running doubles for the better part of August. We had workouts, long runs, weightlifting, plyometrics, and more.

The late summer heat of August slipped away into September. That meant it was time for the meets to begin after three-plus weeks of hard practices.

On September 2, we held our traditional home opening meet against Timothy Christian. Both of our teams won, and it was in that meet that it became very clear that our key to success this season would be THE PACK. In that meet, we slammed the door on Timothy Christian by taking eight consecutive spots from 4^th through 11^th places.

We went to Plainfield Central, followed by another home meet. Then, on a very early (and cold) September 13^th morning, we boarded a 5 am bus for a trip to the very same location that we competed on yesterday – Peoria’s Detweiller Park. That meet foreshadowed the depth of the Class 1A field this season. In a field of over 45 teams, we finished a very respectable 23^rd on the strength of our pack.

After that, we competed at Plano, then Bureau Valley, then returned home. Then we made our first of two trips to one of our favorite courses, Aurora’s Oakhurst Forest Preserve for the annual “Charger Classic” Invitational. It was a this meet that we ran to a third place trophy in the Blue Division. That third place trophy was a sign of greater success to come for our ladies as September switched into October.

We hosted Lisle and four other teams at the annual “Westmont 500” – so christened by Lisle Coach Ken Jakalski. Then we returned the favor that weekend by traveling down Odgen Avenue for the first of three times to our home away from home – Lisle’s Community Park. In what would become the prevailing theme of our meets at Lisle, unusually cold and windy conditions were present for the Mane Event. This year’s edition featured—of all things, on October 4^th—snow. It was at Mane Event that we learned who our competition for the state series would be—namely, the girls from Chicago Christian, who hailed from Palos Heights.

After Mane Event, we traveled to Plano once again, then had a weekend off but on Columbus Day, we traveled out to Amboy and ran well there.

Then came the meets that we had been working towards all season: Conference, Regional, Sectional. And hopefully a return trip to Detweiller Park.

First up was Conference on October 18^th, once again in cool and windy and sometimes rainy. We had three of our athletes earn Independents Classic plaques in the combined meet – Imogene Asa, Peyton Nash, and Emilia Maslany. In the Conference meet, Imogene finished 10^th to earn her third consecutive All-Conference honors.

We moved on to Regional for a rematch with Chicago Christian. They won round two, 48-74, but everyone ran well. Then it came down to the Sectional meet with one of five spots earning a trip to Detweiller Park as the prize. Chicago Christian again beat us, this time 81-107, but we had closed the gap on them, earned a Sectional runner-up finish – which meant that we were on our way to Detweiller Park for the fourth time in five seasons!

We departed for Detweiller Park on Friday morning, stopping at Omega for breakfast. We practiced on the course, then checked into our hotel and went to dinner. We had our team meeting. All along throughout the weekend just as we had all season long, we bonded as a team.

We were up early on Saturday morning as we needed to get to Detweiller Park early so that we had sufficient time to warm up to ensure that we were ready for our race. As our ladies were warming up, parents, siblings, friends, alumni, CUSD 201 staff members, and friends of Westmont Cross Country were also arriving at Detweiller Park. We cannot thank our fans enough for the incredible support they provided for us on Saturday morning.

We made our way to the starting line for the final time this season for the biggest race of our season. We proceeded through the routine that we had established so long ago like clockwork.

It was game time.

At precisely 9:00 am on a cool and windy day, the gun fired to begin the Class 1A Girls State Final – the first of six races that would be conducted today. Our ladies got out to probably their best start of the year. However, as we made the “candy cane” turn and hit the hill, our pack fell apart a little. That meant that we were going to have some work to do.

Our mile times were some of our quickest of the entire season, as is typical of Detweiller Park, which is certainly one of the fastest high school cross country courses in the entire country. The times across all three classes – both boys and girls – bear that out every year.

This year was no exception. In perhaps what was one of the deepest Class 1A fields in history, our ladies competed with the best of the state – they had earned their right to be here in this race.

Peyton Nash was leading the Sentinel pack at the mile, followed by Imogene Asa, Lily Arndt, Brittany Eiermann, Emilia Maslany and Lisa Niemiec were running side-by-side, with Hannah Abbatacola not far behind.

As our ladies ran in and out of the triangle – that is where we made our move. That was our plan to move through the triangle and pass as many people as we could. That plan worked.

The pack held strong through the second mile – Peyton Nash still led our attack, followed Imogene Asa. Then Emilia Maslany, Lily Arndt, and Lisa Niemiec came through three-wide across the blue mats at the two mile mark, with Brittany Eiermann right behind them and Hannah Abbatacola closely following them.

Our seven ladies swung around the top of the course, then ran back down the hill, cut across the course to the candy cane turn, and then began the final stretch up the long, slow incline to the finish.

Peyton Nash was the first Sentinel across the line, finishing in 114^th – and just missing out on breaking the 20 minute barrier in 20:06 to. Imogene Asa, a two-time cross country state qualifier, then finished 123^rd, in a lifetime personal best of 20:18 in the final cross country race of her career. Then the pack lived up to the definition of pack running: Emilia Maslany – just as she did back in September at the First to the Finish Invitational – moved up a ton in the final two miles to finish as our third finisher in 20:40 for 140^th place. Lily Arndt was right on Emilia’s heels for a 142^nd place finish in 20:46 and Lisa Niemiec was close behind in 20:53 for 148^th. Brittany Eiermann, another two-time cross country state qualifier, was just a few more places back in 154^th in 21:00. Hannah Abbatacola rounded out the Sentinel attack in 171^st place in 21:36.

Our ladies scored 81-89-105-107-113-(119)-(136) for 495 points. We actually ended up finishing 22^nd this year after finishing 21^st last year. While that was a bit of a surprise, it demonstrated the incredible depth of talent in Class 1A this season, and we are proud to have been a part of it.

What is even more important is that every single one of our ladies ended up setting lifetime personal bests to end their seasons, and Imogene’s case, her cross country career. Every single one of our ladies ran their best race of the season in the biggest and most important race of all. You can’t ask for more than that. All seven of our ladies that toed the line today battled their hardest and gave it their all. All of the work that they put in going back to June 9^th paid off on November 8^th, which was the goal all along this season.

Take a look at this chart. This chart lists each of the eight ladies who were on our state series roster this year. The second column lists the time from their first race of the season. The third column lists their time from the First to the Finish Invitational on September 13^th, the first time we ran on this course this season. The fourth column is their time from Saturday’s State Final (In Halle’s case, it is from she ran at Sectional to fill in for Lisa). The bottom number in each of those columns is their mile pace average. The fifth column has two numbers:

The top number is the overall improvement from their first dual meet to State. The bottom number is the improvement from First to the Finish on September 13th to State yesterday.

Athlete	First Dual	Peoria FTTF 9/13	State	Improvement
Imogene Asa Senior	23:56 Pace: 7:58/mi	21:29 Pace: 7:09/mi	20:18 Pace: 6:46/mi	Overall: -3:38 Peoria: -1:11
Brittany Eiermann Junior	24:21 Pace: 8:07/mi	22:03 Pace: 7:21/mi	21:00 Pace: 7:00/mi	Overall: -3:21 Peoria: -1:03
Hannah Abbatacola Freshman	27:07 Pace: 9:02/mi	22:35 Pace: 7:31/mi	21:36 Pace: 7:12/mi	Overall: -5:31 Peoria: -0:59
Lily Arndt Freshman	25:19 Pace: 8:26/mi	23:20 Pace: 7:46/mi	20:46 Pace: 6:55/mi	Overall: -4:33 Peoria: -2:34
Emilia Maslany Freshman	24:55 Pace: 8:18/mi	21:29 Pace: 7:09/mi	20:40 Pace: 6:53/mi	Overall: -4:15 Peoria: -0:49
Halle Nash Freshman	27:45 Pace: 9:15/mi	24:54 Pace: 8:18/mi	22:12 Pace: 7:24/mi	Overall: -5:33 Peoria: -2:42
Peyton Nash Freshman	24:20 Pace: 8:06/mi	22:43 Pace: 7:34/mi	20:06 Pace: 6:42/mi	Overall: -4:14 Peoria: -2:37
Lisa Niemiec Freshman	24:43 Pace: 8:14/mi	21:29 Pace: 7:09/mi	20:53 Pace: 6:57/mi	Overall: -3:49 Peoria: -0:36

I think that chart speaks for itself. I actually looked back at the first meet of the season, and every single one of our ladies listed above ran a 3 mile pace in the final race of their season (either Sectional or State) that was faster than the first mile they ran in their season debuts. In some cases, their 3-mile average is faster than their season opening mile split by over one full minute! That is a testament to how much hard work each and every one of our ladies – not just our state series roster – put in during the course of the season. Each and every one of our ladies should be incredibly proud of their accomplishments this season and take pride in how much hard work and effort they put in to their training, to their team, and to their sport and to see it all pay off.

As coaches, we can’t ask for any more than that.

Finally, here are some more pretty cool stats for the girls from the State Meet:

Peyton Nash's 20:06 puts her 17th on the All-Time Top 25 Westmont Runners at State list.
Imogene Asa's 20:18, 15 seconds faster than last year, puts her 19th on the All-Time Top 25 Westmont Runners at State list.
Emilia Maslany's 20:40 ranks her 21st on the All-Time Top 25 Westmont Runners at State list.
Lily Arndt's 20:46 places her 23rd on the All-Time Top 25 Westmont Runners at State list.
Lisa Niemiec's 20:53 places her 24th on the All-Time Top 25 Westmont Runners at State list.
Brittany Eiermann's 21:00 puts her 25th on the All-Time Top 25 Westmont Runners at State list.
Hannah Abbatacola's 21:36, while just outside of the All-Time Top 25 list, would place her 28th.

Check out the full list by clicking on this link!

That's pretty impressive company, ladies. That is a testament to how hard you worked this season, and it shows. We are so proud of each and everyone of you. Thank you for such a great season, many more great memories, and for being such a joy to be around and coach.

We hope to see many of our new faces from this season out for our track team in the spring. Coach Wolf and Coach Dunne would love to be able to continue coaching you in the spring. If you choose a different sport, we wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose to do, and we hope to see you back out next fall.

Once again, we must thank all of our parents, siblings, friends, alumni, staff members, and friends of our program for making the trip down to Peoria for the State Final, wishing us luck, bringing food for us, and of course for their support throughout the entire season. We could not have done it with out you all.

Finally, we want to thank our three seniors for their dedication to our program.

Amanda Yates was a first year member of our team and she did a simply awesome job in coming to a new school and a new program, and her dedication was incredible.

Our other two seniors -- Imogene Asa and Victoria Thomas, are three year veterans of our program. They have worked so hard since they joined cross country their sophomore years, and it has all paid off for both of them. Congratulations to both of them on great Sentinel cross country careers. But, I think I speak for Coach Wolf and Coach Marose when I say that their leadership this season has been invaluable beyond words. Their guidance, their caring, and their willingness to help out their teammates is a testament to their character and the wonderful young women they are. We know without a doubt that their leadership this season will continue to leave an impact on our team in the years to come, especially with so many freshmen on the team this year.

We will miss all of our seniors greatly, and wish them nothing but the best of luck in their future endeavors and hope that you will stay in touch with our program as you move on to the next chapter of your lives after graduation in the spring.

We are very much looking forward to next season, and we look forward to raising the bar even higher. We hope that you will join us for another journey that will begin next June with another round of summer running.

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for since I began writing this novel……

There are only 71 days until track and field begins.
Will you be ready?