Dale Donner Invite
Sophomore Sam Cobine
Bureau Valley HS, Walnut Illinois
68 degrees, cloudy and rainy
There was a lot of rain all morning, but no lightning so the Dale Donner Invite went on as planned. 37 teams attended with a mix of northern and central programs who are all 1A. Bureau Valley will be hosting a regional this year (we are at Winnebago), so this meet was used for them to ensure they are ready to host. The course has many turns and is extremely thin is some areas. This lead to the mud being an issue for some sections. Top thirty individuals in the Varsity Race would receive a trophy.
We had one lone Fresh/Soph runner in Sam Cobine. Sam would go on to finish 30th out of 86 in the 2.5 mile race. On the girls side we had two competitors in Tessa Gempler and Alivia Northrup. Ell Law sat this one out in favor of being fresh and healthy for our next meet. There were two ranked programs in #8 Elmwood and #24 Cambridge. Individually #17 ranked Jana Vande Kemp of Cambridge led the entire race and won in a time of 18:49. Aelyn Anderson of Tremont would finish second ahead of #7 ranked Emalyn Millar of Aledo Mercer County. Tessa Gempler finished in 61st and Alivia Northrup was 122nd. Team wise, Elmwood took the win over Aledo 43 to 99. Stockton/Le-Win of the NUIC would finish 7th out of the 18 full teams.
Sophomore Liam Schauer
By the time the boys race started, the course was in a tough condition. We had 9 competitors in Lucas Jackson, Peter Wagner, Ian Tancrell, Liam Schauer, Wesley Haas, Sevin Smith, Auggie Hesselbacher, Lucas Wurster and Achilles Morales. Similar to Ell sitting out, Vincent Gullone, Andrew Richardson and Nicholas Cobine sat as well. There were three ranked teams in #2 East Dubuque, #14 Rockford Lutheran and #15 Elmwood. The Elmwood duo of Danny Sharp and Cole Cahill took the race out fast and led the entire way. Danny would go on to win in an impressive time of 15:53 on his birthday. Cole finished second in 16:05. #19 ranked Hunter Keyster finished in 4th behind Gianni Verucchi of LaSalle Peru. Lucas Jackson was our top runner today for the first time in his career. He finished ahead of #13 ranked Jacob Schroeder of Rockford Lutheran in 5th place. #21 ranked Peter Wagner was our 2 today and took a slip halfway through. He finished in 9th ahead of #17 ranked Kyle Enke of Rockford Lutheran. Henry Nichols of Amboy who we will see at Conference finished in 11th place. Ian Tancrell finished in 25th as our 3. Liam Schauer continued his forward progression finishing in 32nd, less than a second behind the final trophy spot. Wesley Haas rounded out our top 5 in 76th. Sevin Smith and Auggie Hesselbacher were close behind in 87th and 89th. This was a PR for Sevin and Auggies first ever HS race. Lucas Wurster finished in 109th and Achilles Morales was 165th. Team wise Elmwood had a great day finishing in first with 37 points. They finished second last year at state and are looking to trophy once again. Elmwood has the most state titles in 1A IHSA history with 8. Rockford Lutheran finished in second place with 98 points. Rockford Lutheran is in our regional, so we will be seeing them often near the end of the season. Despite being down 3 of our top 5, we were able to finish in third with 122 points. The NUIC program of Amboy continued to improve and finished in 5th as the next highest Conference school.
Despite the tough day we were able to learn a few things and leave the meet healthy and motivated. Our next meet is the Jim Boughton Invite in Dubuque on Thursday, September 24th.
