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Young claims back-to-back sectional titles
Updated: May 12, 2011 9:43PM
The Young farewell tour continued rolling in record-setting fashion Thursday afternoon at Concordia University in River Forest.
Five days after winning their third straight Public League title, the Dolphins earned their second consecutive Class 3A sectional championship — and the second in program history — for outgoing coach Bob Geiger. With defending state 400-meter champ Raena Rhone, multi-talented Elisabeth Forte and relay stalwart RoriAnn Nalls leading the way, Young edged St. Ignatius 146-141.
Geiger’s last meet as Young coach will be next weekend’s state finals at Eastern Illinois University’s O’Brien Stadium in Charleston. It’ll also be the finale for every one of the Dolphins’ seniors, all six of whom advanced either individually or as members of Young’s four first-place relay teams.
“[St.] Ignatius looked really good coming into this meet,” Geiger said. “I thought they were going to run away with it.”
But Rhone, Forte and Nalls didn’t let that happen.
Rhone won the 400 in 55.52 seconds, her second-best time of the season and also the second-best in the state, was runner-up in the 200 and ran on the winning 400 relay. Teammate Maisie Vachuska, another senior, was second in the 400.
“It was a good day,” Rhone said. “It’s nice to have company [at state].”
Forte, also a senior, won the long jump at a season-best 18 feet, 4 1/2 inches, was runner-up in the triple jump with another season best (36-1) and ran legs on the winning 400 and 800 relays.
She saw the meet as redemption after failing to qualify for state last season in the long jump.
“It’s really been on my mind to prove to myself and everybody that I deserve to go down there,” Forte said.
Nalls ran legs on Young’s winning 800, 1,600 and 3,200 relay teams. As an alternate in the 800, she got the call five minutes before the race when fellow senior Janel Simpkins pulled up with an injury in the 100 finals.
"It made me nervous, but ... I went out there [thinking] everybody's working hard, we deserved to get Downstate," said Nalls, who regularly ran the 800 relay last season. "I was definitely [thinking], 'Oh, gotta get back used to it.'"
Young's other advancing seniors were Simpkins on the 400 relay, Vicky Rusanova, runner-up in the 100 hurdles in a second-chance run-off after several runners took a spill in the event finals, and high jump runner-up Chandler Farris.
Other notable winning efforts included Fenwick junior Erin McCoy’s season-best 44.87 in the 300 hurdles, Oak Park-River Forest senior Tijuanna Williams’ season-best 24.73 in the 200 and St. Ignatius junior Mariah Harris’ season-best 36-11 in the triple jump. Dunbar junior Kadeesha Miller won the shot put and discus.
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