Boys Cross Country: Leyden’s Fabian Cabrera gives it his all

Updated: November 8, 2011 8:16PM

Fabian Cabrera didn’t meet his goal of a top-25 finish at Saturday’s Class 3A boys cross country state meet in Peoria, but the senior did turn in the best Leyden finish at the state meet in 21 years.

Cabrera’s clocking of 15 minutes, 14 seconds was a personal record for him and made him the 43rd-place finisher. The top-25 finish he was aiming for would have made him an All-State runner.

The last Leyden runner to finish higher than Cabrera at the state meet was Dan Mazur, who placed sixth with a time of 14:47 in 1990.

“Although his goal was to finish in the top 25, I was very pleased with Fabian’s performance,” Leyden coach Rick Mason said. “He put forth his best effort and ran a very solid race.”

Prior to the meet, Cabrera said he believed he would have to run 14:40 to be among the top 25 finishers. As it turned out, Danville’s Johnny Leverenz finished 25th in 15:01. If Cabrera had finished in 14:40, he would have been 10th.

New Trier’s Leland Later won the race in 14:17, 10 seconds ahead of runner-up Alex Riba of O’Fallon (14:27). Oak Park-River Forest’s Malachy Schrobilgen was third in 14:28

“I feel like I could have done better,” Cabrera said. “I knew I wanted to go out with some of the top guys and try to keep up. I went out in 4:44 (for the first mile of the three-mile race), but I started fading at about the 1.5-mile mark. I started getting passed.”

While Saturday’s race was the last for Cabrera as a Leyden cross country runner, he said he plans to continue the sport in college. He has not yet decided where he will attend college after graduating from Leyden in the spring of 2012.

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