Naperville Sun cross country notebook

Updated: March 22, 2011 5:10PM

Waubonsie Valley senior David Groeber has turned in his finest races at the tail end of his high school career, and colleges are noticing.

"I happened to call a friend of mine who is a coach at a major D-I program over the week to talk about something else and I couldn't get off the phone talking to him about Groeber," Warriors coach Kevin Rafferty said at Saturday's St. Charles East Sectional. "He's going to have options down the road here and we're just looking to get one more good race out of him."

The standout is undecided on his running future but he has Rafferty's faith.

Last time Groeber spoke with his coach, Rafferty's alma mater - North Central - was one of four schools to which Groeber had applied. The others were Illinois, Notre Dame and Iowa. Rafferty added that Groeber "can run with any of the freshmen" at any of those four.

Groeber will try to continue riding his recent momentum in the state meet Nov. 6. He has peaked at just the right time in terms of both conditioning and race discipline, finishing second in conference and winning the regional. Groeber displayed arguably his best run of the season at the sectional, running a 15:05.95 race to take home the win.

"I would love to be all-state - that's been the goal since the beginning of the season," Groeber said of his state aspirations. "We'll see. I'd really also like to be top 10 but I think that's a little bit high."

Team outlook

The Warriors took second in both the conference and regional meets, then finished seventh in the sectional.

Things meshed late.

"The seven guys that ran (Saturday) were the seven guys that worked the hardest over the last six months and they deserved to run," Rafferty said.

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