Welcome back IXC fans! Let’s get back to our meet coverage, a lot has happened since the last one! For this writeup, we’ll be covering IXC’s second meet this season, the Wisconsin Border Battle! This was a great meet for many reasons: less hilly than Purdue, it was an overnight meet with teammates, and lots of quick times! Let’s start off with the women!
The women finished third overall in a battle with Wisconsin and Michigan. Fearlessly leading the way was Claire Caisello with a 40-second PR and a time of 24:08.6, also snagging 5th overall. Secondly was Suhani Peramanu with a time of 25:09.9, two minutes faster than the previous meet and already beating her season goal! Coming in third was freshman Carlin Hass, finishing a well-paced race in 25:24.4. Fourth was Anna Jablonski with a time of 26:00.9, using the downhills to her advantage. Rounding out our Top 5 was Anna Zlatic, running a time of 26:20.8 for her first race of the season and also setting a 20-second 6K PR! Our sixth runner was Bridget Brokaw, finishing in the top 20 with a great team race and a time of 26:36.3! Wrapping up our top 7 this time was freshman Masumi Nehru, running a time of 26:54.9 with a strong finish! Coming in eighth for our women was another freshman, Annika Luthe running a new PR of 27:06.8 and enjoying the course much more than her first race! Folks, I just want to take an aside here and point out that we had six of the top 20 spots and 8 of the top 23 spots! Impressive stuff! Next up for the women was freshman Lia Tondeva, running 27:57.8 for her first 6K! After Lia, we had London Maxwell with her second appearance with IXC, and she ran a time of 31:26.1. Following London we had Nora Winters and Elissa Eaton, who had great fun running together, getting times of 32:30.7 and 32:10.5 respectively. Following up was Anna Winnicki, making her season debut in a time of 33:36.8! And last but certainly not least was Allison Kokal, running two minutes faster than last week with a time of 34:31.3!
Next up were the men, who were in a similar position to the women, running a battle for a third-place finish. First up was Ethan Forsell, running a time of 26:23.5 and placing 9th overall! Coming in behind him were Percy Moser, Adam Gorcyca, and John Wiser, all finishing within about ten seconds of one another and running times of 26:35.3, 26:42.4, and 26:46.0. Rounding out our top 5 was Thomas Harmon, coming in at 27:07.8. After Thomas came another trio consisting of Simon Hidly, Kavin Prashaad and Nolan Enright, coming through the finish all within ten seconds of one another with times of 27:21.5, 27:23.2, and 27:29.9. Great pack running! After that was some representation from Illinois School District 204 alumni, with John Burns and freshman Alex Herrera running 28:14.2 and 28:16.7! Liam Hoeferlin stormed through the finish next, running 28:31.6! Our last sub-30 finisher was Aidan Markiewicz, who’s been having a breakthrough season, he ran his second sub-30 performance so far running 29:43.9! And coming in together after a strong race was another group of three, consisting of Quinn Born, Brendan Graven, and Ram Ganesan running 30:49.3, 30:58.3, and 31:03.5! And last but certainly not least was Gabe Benson, making his season debut in 38:18.5!
All in all, we had a much better time this week than the previous race. We saw much faster times, fewer hills, and more teamwork out there! Cross country is absolutely a team sport, and sticking with teammates when it hurts leads to much better performances and better camaraderie overall.
Results Link!