Naperville Sun cross country notebook

Updated: March 22, 2011 5:16PM

"Our goal is to make it to state as a team, which is very doable. We have a lot of talent."

That quote is from Naperville Central coach Aislinn Hicks, who was describing her team's outlook back in August. The Redhawks can't look too far ahead but, for right now, that goal still is not out of the realm of possibility.

Central finished fourth at Saturday's Naperville North Regional at DuPage River Park, scoring 103 points. Team champion Wheaton Warrenville South registered 27.

With their finish, the Redhawks qualified for the Oct. 30 St. Charles East Sectional.

"We were hoping to get third or fourth today, so we're pretty satisfied with how we ran," Hicks said Saturday.

Saturday scores

Junior Amanda Fox had Central's highest regional finish, fourth overall in 17 minutes 52.74 seconds. Nicole Latronica (18:50.99) finished 18th and Catherine Finedore (18:51.34) took 19th.

Fox won the girls title last year despite running a slower time (18:08.35). She has made winning races appear so easy that it's often easy to overlook her success when she doesn't win.

A small snafu in the regional may have cost her regional-title repeat, but her coach expects her to learn from it and make adjustments.

"She ran well," Hicks said. "She got a little stuck between the 1-mile and 2-mile mark and she got behind a little pack but we'll work on that for next week."

Last year

The Naperville Central girls finished sixth in the '09 sectional and will have to improve upon that against a tough field of competitors in order to make state as a team. Fox won her ninth race title of the year with an 18:28.5 time at LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve.

"The main thing to watch for at the sectional meet is the start narrows down very quickly," Hicks pointed out.

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.