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Schools

Dukes' Cross Country Teams Returning to State

The York boys and girls cross country teams will compete at the Class 3A state meet in Peoria Saturday.

Many of the names may be different this season, but the York boys cross country team is in its usual position going into the state meet.

The Dukes showed they are in contention to defend their Class 4A state championship as they rolled to the Niles West Sectional title Saturday in Skokie.

York (73 points), ranked No. 2 behind Palatine in the final regular-season DyeStat Illinois poll, put its top four runners among the top 20 to finish comfortably ahead of No. 6 New Trier (110) and No. 17 Loyola (153). It was the Dukes’ third sectional title over the past four years.

Junior Scott Milling (15:12.59) and sophomore Nathan Mroz (15:16.08) finished sixth and seventh in the 3.0-mile race, followed by sophomore Kyle Mattes (15th, 15:26.27), juniors Chris May (19th, 15:36.42) and Jack Libert (26th,  15:45.81), senior Billy Clink (32nd, 15:51.45) and junior Evan Fabry (40th, 15:59.53).

The 4A state meet is at 2 p.m. Saturday (Nov. 5) at Peoria’s Detweiller Park. Last season, York won its 27th state championship, all since Joe Newton took over as head coach in 1960, and its first since 2006 by two points over Lake Zurich (162-164). York also has earned top-three trophies at the past nine state meets.

“We’re ranked No. 2 (in the state) so we’ve got a shot at it,” Newton said. “I thought (Saturday) was one of our better races. We just came out of there very happy because it’s such a tough sectional.

“I thought we did the best we can, especially Mroz being right up there with Milling. We ran one of our better races of the year. The split (from our No. 1-5 finishers) was only 30 seconds.”

Milling is the only returnee from last year’s state lineup who competed Saturday. He was 55th at state in 2010 as the Dukes’ No. 4 finisher.

Returning to the varsity lineup Saturday was Clink, a transfer student this season, who has competed at the last two state meets with St. Charles North’s team qualifier, taking 140th in 2009 and 158th last year. Junior Alex Mimlitz, York’s No. 2 state finisher last season (41st), had competed at regionals but was hindered by a lingering hip injury.

Mroz, who has spent most of the season running on the sophomore level, provided a huge lift with a top-10 finish. The Dukes could have been even more dominant but Libert, the team’s No. 3 finisher in many past races, got jammed back in the pack early in the turn-happy course and had to work his way up from being in the 40s.

Palatine, fourth at state last year (180 points), beat the Dukes in meetings on consecutive weekends at the Richard Spring Invitational at Detweiller and the Palatine Invite Sept. 17 and 24. Other highly-ranked contenders include No. 3 Neuqua Valley, No. 4 O’Fallon, No. 5 Buffalo Grove and No. 7 Schaumburg. Neuqua (180) and O’Fallon (200) were third and fifth at state last year.

York girls cross country

Mixing veterans and varsity newcomers has become another state-qualifying combination for the York girls cross country team.

The Dukes earned their fourth straight state berth and 21st in the past 22 seasons by taking third at the Niles West Sectional Saturday with 96 points.

Ranked No. 11 in the final regular-season state poll by DyeStat Illinois, York only was beaten by No. 1 New Trier (33) and No. 7 Glenbard West (96) while edging No. 3 Lake Park (4th, 108).

Junior and 2010 all-stater Emma Fisher (17:54.62) and senior Kayla Spencer (18:00.45) were ninth and 10th on the 3.0-mile course, followed by senior Shari Lund (20th, 18:27.37), sophomore Allison Smith (27th, 18:43.73), seniors Michelle Frigo (30th, 18:47.74) and Lizzy Field (33rd, 18:58.11) and freshman Dayle Mueller (37th, 19:02.17).

“There’s a lot of great teams out there. (At state), there’s probably 12 teams out there that could be possible trophy winners. I would like to think (we’re among them),” York coach Annette Schulte said. “(Our sectional goals were) to qualify, to win, to close the gaps that we had and we did do that. (And) to learn and prepare for state, to learn about the competition as individuals and as team. If you’re going to try anything different strategy wise that was the time to do it.”

Spencer, Lund and Frigo will be competing at state for the fourth time and Fisher and Field the second. 

York had a tremendous state race in 2010 but ended up 12th as part of the fastest overall race in state history. The Dukes finished seventh in 2009 and ninth in 2008.

“If you combined the top-five times (at state last year), it’s faster than any team has run at York,” Schulte said.

Saturday marked the first time this season York’s split among its No. 1-5 finishers was less than one minute. And that’s with the four returnees from last year’s sectional lineup at Niles West finishing anywhere from 15 (Fisher) to 48 (Spencer) seconds faster in Saturday’s race. Field also had a personal-best time.

“They’ve trained hard, they’re in great shape. They’ve really run very well all season,” Schulte said. “They’ve all improved significantly from last year. (I told them),  ‘Now let’s go downstate and run smart.’ ”

At the 2010 state meet, Fisher was 24th to earn one of the 25 all-state spots. Spencer (51st), Frigo (109th) and Lund (126th) were the Dukes’ No. 2-4-5 finishers. Field was the team’s No. 7 state finisher in 2009.

Fisher will try to become just the sixth runner in program history to earn all-state more than once.  Before Saturday, Fisher only had been beaten by Lake Park junior Kaylee Flanagan, ninth at state in 2010, Naperville Central senior Amanda Fox, seventh at state in 2009, and Glenbard East senior Lindsey Rakosnik, a track all-stater in May.

On Saturday, Fisher paid the price for going out hard to challenge Flanagan (17:10.39), the regional champion, and Rakosnik, who also finished ahead of Fisher at regionals. Flanagan suffered her first loss this season by finishing second to New Trier junior and two-time all-stater Courtney Ackerman (17:02.86). Rakosnik was fifth (17:24).

“At regionals, Emma didn’t feel like she went out aggressively. But she did go out really fast (at sectionals),” Schulte said. “I said, ‘This is your time. Go ahead and go for it.’ The girls that held back a little on our team ended up pushing forward more and doing better."

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