Track: Twins team up for Mighty Macs

Marissa Golliday of Richards wins the high jump at the Oak Forest Girls Track and Field Invitational.
(Art Vassy/SouthtownStar)

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Mother McAuley track is a family affair in the distances.

There’s Beth McGreal, who romped to victory in the 3,200-meter run Friday night in the Oak Forest Invitational.

Then there’s Meg McGreal, Beth’s twin sister, who captured the 1,600 by 80 meters — a full straightaway ahead of runner-up Dana Martin of Marist and also ran the anchor leg in McAuley’s victorious 3,200 relay.

Their efforts helped lead the Mighty Macs to the championship, with 93 points, six points more than runner-up Crete-Monee. That doubled the sisters' pleasure, which, on the track, comes from running hard whether they’re in the same race or not.

“Twins are just competitive naturally,” Beth McGreal said. “It’s a healthy competition. Nobody wants to ...”

She stopped there, but agreed the rest of the sentence would have been, “to finish second.”

Or, as Meg McGreal echoed, “We’ve had this competitiveness for a while. It’s a healthy competition.”

Exactly. But they are a little bit different. Beth, at least recently, has the long and middle distances covered. She also ran a 400-meter leg on McAuley’s 1,600 relay team, while Meg has been pointed more toward the 800 and 1,600. And it’s working out.

Asked what she prefers, Meg said, “I enjoy running; I love having fun.” Beth said, “I just like running distance. I really don’t know what my best distance is.”

Beth McGreal won the 3,200 in 11 minutes, 41 seconds, her best time of the season at that distance. Meg McGreal captured the 1,600 in 5:24.38, seven-hundredths of a second off her season best.

As winning the title proved, McAuley isn’t a two-girl team. Kamille Ferguson, who fell in a preliminary round of the 100-meter high hurdles, came back to score a victory in the 300 hurdles. There was also the win in the 3,200, plus a second in the 400 relay and thirds in a quartet of other events.

Richards’ Marissa Golliday won three individual events, scoring victories in the high jump (5 feet), the 400 (55.75 seconds, surpassing her Southland-best by 1.5 seconds), and, in the chill of the evening, the 200 (24.89). In the latter two races, she outran Rich South’s Jerika Lewis to the finish line, winning by about 2.5 seconds in the 400, an enormous margin between two state-class athletes.

T.F. South’s Joyce Holloway, who, like the McGreals, Golliday and Lewis, should make the state finals, scored a double in the field, winning the shot put and discus, the latter improving her Southland-best season standard to 123-1.

Freshman Amber Simonton of Marian Catholic won the long jump, going 15-11.