Championship Season Underway

The SPC is one of the best conferences in the state of Illinois. The chance to compete against the best, means you have to be at your best.

The frosh/soph girls got the day started with a bang. The young team stepped up and ran a great race with personal bests all over the place. The team was led by Kylie DeFano who ran a strong second half to run a 47 second PR, right at 23:00. Next in was Sam Norville, who ran a 20 second PR. Alyssa Cuthbertson rounded out the 5 scoring runners with a big PR as well. Aalyiah Banda ran what may well have been the race of the day with almost a 2-minute personal best. Ashlynn Sabatini rounded out the race with her 3^rd consecutive personal best.

The frosh/soph boys battled as a strong pack. Dominick Barrios ran a strong race as the team’s 3^rd runner running a new personal best. Ezequiel Ocegueda ran yet another personal best dropping about 10 seconds on his best race. Incredible consistency and improvement from Zeke.

The varsity girls were led by Bridget Kemp, who earned All-SPC honors with a season best time. Brooke Rochacz gets better every week, and ran a time equal to her best time on a course much slower than the course she set the PR on. Emiliy Fannin stepped up in a massive way to help to the team and dropped nearly a minute PR as the team’s 3^rd runner. Cyan Bradley ran a season best time to round out the scoring. The team finished 7^th in one of the best conferences in the state.

The varsity boys have been most impacted with health issues in the last month of the season. Luke Adair led the way, in his first race in over a month. Ubaldo Rodriguez was unable to race after a big breakthrough last weekend. Michael Kazak was able to end his high school career with a new personal best.

The open boys was a long line of personal bests. Jake Michel got this going with a new season best time. Jake Fritts ran with courage and confidence and came away with a personal best. Kalib Smith was the next to come away with a personal best. The freshman crew came away with a strong day full of PRs. Zack Omiecinski led the way for the freshman, he was followed by Ethan Collins who dropped a big PR. Ethan’s first race was a 24 minute 2 mile, at SPC he ran 22:17 for 3 miles. Brayden Lane dealt with 3 weeks of injury setback, but stepped up with a PR on the biggest stage. Christian Ndegoe improved nearly 4 minutes from his last race. Adriel Moreno ended his SPC race with a PR. Santiago Zavala ended the day for the Wildcats with his first 3 mile race as a Wildcat.

The Wildcats had 19 of 21 athletes who ran both 2023 SPC and 2024 SPC, and improved this year.

23 of 27 athletes who raced the Steelman invite the 2^nd weekend of September, ran fast at SPC on the same course.