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Cross country: Plainfield Central’s Lawrence takes first
Updated: October 3, 2011 9:16PM
Plainfield Central senior Grace Lawrence had a little extra incentive for the co-ed cross country meet Monday with Plainfield North and Plainfield South.
“This was the last time on my home course forever,” Lawrence said. “Someone went out in front in the first mile and I thought, ‘This is my course.’ I might as well just give everything, everything I had today.”
Lawrence ran Central’s course adjacent to the school in 19 minutes, 54 seconds to take first ahead of Plainfield South’s Kayla Rice (20:31).
“It wasn’t my fastest time but I’m happy I ran under 20 minutes by myself,” Lawrence said.
Also scoring for first-place Central were Nicole Pease (3rd), Elyse Fleck (6th), Stephany Ruiz (10th) and Emily Vihnanek (11th).
“She’s (Vihnanek) the best runner on our team. She’s way better than me,” Lawrence said. “Today she just didn’t feel good. That happens.”
“She (Lawrence) accomplished what she wanted to on the last time on her home course,” Central coach Jenna Zayid said. “I’m sure we’ll get Emily back to where she needs to be real soon.”
Plainfield North’s Maggie Kennedy was fourth and teammate Catherine Crosson placed fifth.
Central, which won the Argo Invitational and took second in the Rich East Invitational, will run Thursday in a meet in Oak Lawn.
“This is the strongest girls team I’ve been around,” Zayid said. “They’re a pretty solid group. They push each other in practice and it shows during competition.”
Plainfield South dominated the boys race, taking the top five spots with a close 1-2 finish from Tyler Ryan (17:41.2) and Cody Dyer (17:41.8).
“It was a good workout for us,’’ Ryan said. “We just kind of paced it out. That’s all we did, ran the workout and ran hard.’’
Also scoring for South were Frank Pasqua (3rd, 17:42), Gabriel Calvillo (4th, 17:43) and Joe Weiss (5th, 17:51).
South showed its depth by winning without Dan Lathrop, one of its top individuals who took a training run.
“Our guys always enjoy coming over to compete against Central and North because a lot of these guys are friends,” South coach Jason Crowe said. “They grew up together. It’s always fun to compete against them.
“They worked well. They packed it up. It’s a good tune-up for conference coming up.”
“We want to win conference (Oct. 15), go to sectionals and then go to state as a team,” Ryan said.
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