For most high school sports teams, winning a state title is the end of their season. And the Naperville North girls cross-country team did officially end in jubilation when it captured its second state championship in three years with an impressive win in Peoria last November.
But the girls weren’t done running.
Naperville North continued to compete as a club, for high school and college eligibility reasons, in the Nike Cross Nationals, a series organized by the footwear giant that brings the best cross-country teams in the nation together in what amounts to a national meet.
Competing as the North Naperville team, the girls finished second in the Midwest regional to earn a trip to the national finals in Portland, Ore. At the national meet in December, junior Judy Pendergast took 22nd overall to lead the team to a fourth place finish.
“It was a fantastic meet for everyone,” said head coach Dan Iverson. “It’s really tough to compare yourself against other teams across the country since conditions in cross-country make such a big difference in your times.
“It fits in with all 50 state federation rules,” he said. “It’s designed as well as you could to have a true national championship. You could say that ours was the fourth best in the country. It’s a pretty special thing.”
Naperville North’s strength all season was a pack of runners who stayed together throughout each race. In the state championship, the top five runners finished within 30 seconds of each other — as they did at the regional and sectional finals. In Portland, Pendergast, who finished the muddy three-mile course in 18:11, was followed by freshman Sarah Schmitt in 59th (18:46), senior Elly DeTurris in 63rd (18:49), senior Emily Hamilton in 119th (19:28) and sophomore Claire Hamilton in 121st (19:28).
Pendergast had been coming on strong, moving up in the pack all season, until taking the team’s top position at the state meet in Peoria.
“This was far and away the best race that she’s ever run,” Iverson said. “She ran so fast I missed her at the first-mile mark. I thought she’d fallen or dropped out. But (at the next mark) I saw here near the front.
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“Consider that there are 45 individuals who qualified, who are state champions or second or third in a really competitive state,” he said. “If you’re in the 50s you’re running great. You’re running fantastic. You could be running amazing and be in that group. To finish 22nd is really something.”
This is the third year in a row that the team has qualified for a trip to Portland.
“It’s something that has worked its way into the fabric of the program,” Iverson said. “It’s an amazing overall experience. Nike takes control of the whole thing. They fly you out there and outfit you for the meet. They pay for food and transportation. It really is an all-encompassing experience.”
Getting up for another big meet after a state championship isn’t easy, but Iverson said the girls have been able to do it.
“We give them a little bit of time off,” he said. “And then we ramped things up the week of Thanksgiving. It worked pretty well. They were all really happy with how things turned out.”
And for a coach who has four of his top five runners from a state championship team next year?
“Yes, that is nice,” Iverson said with a laugh. “But every year is different. Kids develop and grow at different rates. Come next year, we don’t know who will be coming back in the top seven. But when you have a performance like (Nike Cross Nationals), you really do set high expectations for next year.”