First to the Finish
Sophomore Lucas Wurster
Detweiler Park, Peoria, Illinois
75 degrees, sunny and humid
The First to the Finish Invitational is one of the largest meets in the nation. In just the 1A section, there were over 90 teams and 1200 runners between the boys and girls. Nearly every ranked team and individual attended the meet this year to have a chance to run on the state meet course against the best in the state. Once again heat played a major factor. Although the temperature was slightly lower than previous meets, the rising humidity made for a harsh environment. The course is fairly flat and runs very fast.
The first race of the day was the 1A girls. We had three athletes compete in Ell Law, Tessa Gempler and Alivia Northrup. In total there were 513 total 1A girls. Dusti Smith of Stark County and Aubrey Denning of Effingham St. Anthony went straight to the front of the race and lead the entire time. Denning is ranked #3 and Dusti is #6. Denning’s teammate Isabella Keller who is ranked #1 and finished fourth at nationals last year is still recovering from an injury and did not race. Denning would go on to win the race in a time of 17:39 with Dusti finishing second in 17:55. Winnebago’s Molly Webb, who we will see often finished third in 17:58. Despite being in around 20th place at the mile, Ell Law finished 6th overall in a time of 18:28. She slowly moved her way up over the back of the race and used her great kick to catch three girls in the last 50 meters. Her time is the fastest in our programs history at Detweiler park. Tessa Gempler had another great race and finished with a new PR of 22:12. Last year at this meet she ran 24:10. Alivia Northrup also ran a great race with a time of 24:50. The next highest NUIC runner was once again Kenadee Carigan with a time of 20:19 Team wise, Eureka edged out Winnebago with a score of 99 to 107.
Sophomore Lucas Jackson
The boys race ensued at 8:40 AM. We had 10 athletes compete out of the 777 total. They were Vinny Gullone, Peter Wagner, Lucas Jackson, Nicholas Cobine, Ian Tancrell, Wesley Haas, Liam Schauer, Lucas Wurster, Sam Combine and Sevin Smith. The race starts slightly downhill and then goes into a sharp turn. This leads to an extremely fast start. Cameron Roedl from Toldedo Cumberland took the early lead going out in a 4:49 mile. The chase pack was right behind and slowly caught up to him inside the triangle. By two miles, Evan Knobloch, who finished second at state last year had taken the lead and did not give it up. He won the race with a time of 14:57. The duo from Williamsville in Lucas Hollinshead and Ryan Patrick finished 2nd and 3rd. Roedl finished in 4th. For the first time in his career, Peter Wagner was our top runner finishing in 18th place. Not to far behind was Lucas Jackson in 25th. Vinny Gullone, who was in that early chase pack dealt with some heat exhaustion in the last 100 meters and finished in 27th. Our 4 and 5 runners of Nicholas Cobine and Ian Tancrell, both had career races running PRs to finish in 68th and 70th. Liam Schauer, who is still in the process of returning from a stress fracture finished 154th. Wesley Haas finished in 225th. Not far behind him was Lucas Wurster in 256th with a new PR. Sevin Smith was 381st and Sam Cobine was 428th. Team wise Clinton topped us by 5 points. Eureka, who was projected to win, finished in third, 32 points back. The next time we will see either of these teams will be at the state meet. Our next meet is September 19th in Walnut Illinois for the Dale Donner Invite.
