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player ready...At the Class 3A girls track and field Fremd Sectional on Friday, May 15, Buffalo Grove junior Kaitlyn Ko ran a state-qualifying 3,200-meter race.
Her time of 11 minutes, 14.67 seconds earned her a fifth-place medal and ensured her of another week of competitive running. But for Ko, her accomplishment on the track was significant for another reason. In 2014, Ko missed the entire track season. For her to cross the finish line Friday as one of five state qualifiers was a signal she is on her way back.
“It was important, to prove to myself I could make it back,” Ko said.
Ko burst onto the area track scene as a freshman in 2013. She not only made the state meet in the 3,200, but ran a time of 11:02.77, second best of any freshman. In the fall of 2013, Ko finished seventh at the Class 3A cross country state meet. By all appearances, her future in running was promising.
But before the 2014 track season, she began to feel pain in her knees when she ran.
“I couldn’t bear the weight of running. It was so random. I don’t know how it happened,” Ko said.
There was no surgery. The ailment went untreated. She said doctors told her the pain might be due to body growth.
“We never conclusively figured out what it was,” Ko said. “Even when it stopped, we didn’t know what happened.”
By the summer of 2014, the pain in her knees subsided enough for Ko to resume light running. In August, she began to compete for the cross country team. She barely missed the state cutoff time at sectionals.
As the calendar turned to 2015, Ko started to feel stronger. Her times began to drop — on May 1 at Conant, she ran a season-best 3,200 time of 11:10. She also ran the 1,600 in 5:18. Buffalo Grove coach Kendra Hutchinson decided Ko was capable of competing in both distance races at sectionals.
“The whole thing with running both is, can you be competitive in both?” Hutchinson said. “She did want to do it. She’s very committed.”
And while Ko fell short of state in the 1,600, her two-mile run was good enough. A year ago, a mysterious injury gave her an uncertain future. On Friday, she will compete at Eastern Illinois in a race reserved for the state’s best runners.
“Physically I feel better. Making it to state was really important to me, knowing I can be back to where I was,” Ko said. “At state, anything can happen.”
Ko will be joined this weekend by sprinter Nya Carr. A freshman, Carr’s time of 12.51 in the 100-meter dash at Fremd earned her a second-place tie with Barrington senior Nina Hodges.
Buffalo Grove barely missed making the cut in the 4×100 relay. Carr, juniors Gabby Sowa and Becca Rabs and sophomore Sherri McNeal ran a time of 49.89, good for a school record and fourth-place finish. They were less than a half second shy of the state-qualifying mark of 49.44.
“All of them are back next year and will only get better,” Hutchinson said. “It was very important to place and get girls down to state. To reach those goals, it was a very successful sectional.”
Kerr is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter: @prepspioneer