Shorthanded Neuqua Valley wins title

Updated: October 1, 2011 9:02PM

Frustration turned into motivation can be a good thing.

Neuqua Valley finished a disappointing third at the Peoria Woodruff Invitational in early September and the Wildcats still haven’t completely forgotten how that day felt.

Fast forward to Saturday’s Locktoberfest Invitational in Lockport, where Neuqua Valley finished first (80 points) in the 19-team field, beating runnerup Buffalo Grove by eight points. The Wildcats won the meet despite having several runners and coach Paul Vandersteen away from the team. Vandersteen’s advanced placement environmental science class spent the weekend in Wisconsin on a field trip.

Assistant coach Jaime Janota filled in for Vandersteen.

“We missed a few guys but we wanted to come out and give a good performance just because a couple weeks ago at Peoria we kind of got our butts kicked, so we wanted to prove ourselves today,” Neuqua Valley senior Mark Derrick said. “I feel like everyone at least ran better (Saturday).”

Derrick finished second overall in 15 minutes, 32 seconds and teammate Alekh Meka took seventh in 16 minutes flat.

Andrew Smith finished 20th in 16:16 and Xander Jacobson (16:21) was 23rd.

Naperville North placed fourth with 114 points. The Huskies, like the Wildcats, had two runners finish in the top 10 overall. Griffin Haugen (16:00) claimed eighth place and Dan Emrie finished 10th in 16:05.

All other Huskies finished outside the top 25.

Haugen, a junior, succinctly explained his approach to the intricacies of the hilly course.

“(With) the uphills, you’ve just got to push through them,” he said. “And then (when) you get to the downhill, let it rip.” He also said he enjoyed the competitive atmosphere of the meet.

“It’s just a lot of good teams, a lot of good competition and a fun race,” Haugen added.

Buffalo Grove’s Jereme Atchison won the boys varsity race with a time of 15:16.

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