Deep Glenbard South wins own sectional

One second Rosary sprinter Christine Slade is standing next to the track at Glenbard South, ready to cheer on her teammates in the 400-meter relay.
The next she is running the second leg of the Royals’ state qualifying relay, helping Rosary to a second place-team finish at the Class 2A sectional track meet Friday night.
“I hopped the fence, grabbed my spikes and I ran. It was all fun,” said Slade. “The adrenaline was going so fast. I was so excited.”
Slade, who hurriedly tied her shoes as the gun went off and was forced in to action as the second alternate at the last second because of an injury to Ally Rindone and some confusion as to the first alternate’s eligibility, did her part as Rosary ran a 50.68 to take second behind the Raiders 50.28.
“We were just looking around and couldn’t find anybody,” Rosary coach Vic Mead said. “Alternates aren’t just standing with you the whole meet. Ally wanted to do it but her foot just said no. And Christine did a great job.”
Rosary’s 100 points came in behind Glenbard South’s 123, but for a little while it looked like Rosary might get the win, that is until the field results came in.
“We were fourth last year so it’s two places up, that’s good,” Mead said. “We knew there was a chance to win, but they just had too much strength in field events. I had them down for a possible 59 points in field events. That’s a lot. And that’s something we’ll work on. We need to work on getting throwers.”
It was just slightly more than field events, however, with the edge coming as the Raiders won the 400 relay, won the 1,600 relay, came in second in the 800 relay and took fourth in the 3,200 relay.
Only three Raiders qualified for state as individuals: Melissa Nelson (pole vault), Ashley Ellis (pole vault) and Samantha Howard (discus).
But that was plenty enough points, despite the lack of individual qualifiers because of strong placing.
“You look at the meet and score beforehand and Rosary probably had 18 points on us,” Glenbard South coach Mark Tacchi said. “You just throw out the best lineup and hope for the best. Our kids just bettered their seed. We always ask them to do a little better than what’s expected and then good things might happen. We weren’t expecting this, but we well outscored where we were seeded.”
Anna Deufel scored wins in the 100 and 200 for Rosary, while also running the anchor of the 400 relay and second leg of the first-place 800 relay.
“It’s such a great feeling when you win the 100 and 200,” Deufel said. “It was real exciting and a good day.”
All the aforementioned teams and events qualified for state, as did Amy Kus in the 100 high hurdles, taking second in 15.88 behind defending state champ Amber Farrell of IMSA.
Also qualifying was Rosary’s 3,200 relay team of Emily Bakala, Abby Hammer, Courtney Cox and Kara Kalisz, which was third in 9:51.16 after leading going into the last leg in a duel with Montini, only to have St. Francis come out of nowhere to win.
IMSA took sixth place with 38 points, but ran very strong throughout the meet.
Natalie Runkle finished second in the 3,200 in 11:36, a second behind Eryn Fallon of Guerin and nine seconds ahead of Nazareth’s Charlotte Walsh, all who qualified for state.
“It’s been great to see what they can do,” first-year IMSA head coach Elizabeth Navis said. “We had a lot of PRs today and a lot of athletes who went out and did their best. We do a lot of learning at IMSA and I feel our kids have a big learning curve but have figured out what the races are and we’ve figured out who to put in different things.”
Farrell qualified for state by winning the 100 and 300 hurdles and nearly tracking down Deufel on the backstretch of the 200, finishing second.
“Our team has done a lot better this year. This was our most competitive meet,” Farrell said. “My times have been better than they’ve been all season.”
Montini came in third with 74 points, while St. Francis had 70 for fourth.
Spartans distance runner Kelly McShea won the 1,600 in 5:16, getting her downstate.
St. Francis senior Katy Garcia bookended her high school career with another trip to state, winning the high jump ahead of Broncos’ qualifier Bridget Bodee.
Garcia also placed second in the 300 in a state qualifying time, ahead of Broncos’ qualifier Theresa Connelly.
“It was a great feeling to go down to state again,” Garcia said breathless and smiling. “I was just living my dream of doing what I love, which is track.”

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