PEORIA — For Grayslake Central’s Jack Aho and his brother, Matt, the Class 2A state cross country meet will be a memory for a lifetime.
Jack Aho repeated as the individual state champion Saturday and Matt Aho was next behind his brother in second place on an unseasonably mild and sunny day at Detweiller Park.
“Last year I wanted to win, obviously, and had confidence, but I knew it was going to be close,” Jack Aho he said. “This year, I kind of expected to have a little bit more gap between first and second.
“Doing it once, it’s never easy to do it again. Just getting here healthy, it’s been a process for the whole team. That’s kind of the main goal, get here healthy and do what you have to do when the time comes.”
Jack Aho certainly did that. The Michigan recruit covered the course in 14 minutes, 12 seconds while Matt clocked a runner-up finish of 14:27 in the All-Staters’ final high school cross country race.
“It’s amazing. It’s something we’ve dreamed of forever,” said Matt Aho, who was seventh in the 2015 final. “For it to finally finish 1-2, it’s unbelievable. It’s great, it’s awesome.”
Normal’s Jack Franklin finished third (14:30), Kaneland’s Matthew Richtman was fourth (14:36) and Crystal Lake Central’s Cole Barkocy was fifth (14:40).
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“It was kind of like, ‘Just get the job done today,”’ Jack Aho said. “I knew I was in good shape. It was really just a matter of going out there and run my race. That’s really what I wanted to do, just stay within myself, run my race. I knew I had the strength to run well.”
Matt did, too.
“Around the 800 mark, I could see Cole and Jack kind of pulling back a little bit,” Matt Aho said. “I was (thinking), ‘OK, we can really do this.”’
Bradley-bound Matt Aho played soccer his first two years in high school before he switched to cross country.
“Senior year I realized I could do it, I could run with the front guys,” Matt said.
All-Stater Eli Minsky (12th, 14:54), Luke Reblin (84th, 15:58) and Mario Giannini (95th, 16:05) completed the top five who led Central (134) to second place behind state champion Mahomet-Seymour (58).
“Mentally, this is not an easy sport,” Jack Aho said. “It’s a lot of things going on. But once you kind of get in that groove and get used to it, you know how to race and rely on your training, you can go a long way.”
Grayslake Central’s girls finished fifth in 2A with 271 points as Elizabeth Aho — Jack and Matt’s sister — led the way in 60th place (18:38).
All-Staters Brian Griffith (fifth, 14:14) and Matt Pereira (sixth, 14:24) returned to the top 10 of the Class 3A final to lead Lake Zurich to third place and a team trophy in the race won by Neuqua Valley.
“(Minooka’s) Soren Knudsen made a really hard move at the two-mile (mark), and I just had a hard time covering it,” Griffith said. “I was just fighting the last mile to stay where I was. I’m happy with that, but I would have liked to win. But you can’t complain about that.”
Lake Zurich was 3A runner-up in 2010, just two points behind state champion York.
“Our primary goal was to win, but we’re still pretty relieved that we got a trophy,” Pereira said. “We didn’t think it was our best performance, but we gave it what we could. Neuqua (Valley) was by far the best team on this day.”
Grant sophomore Danielle Osmon is an All-Stater after she placed 14th (17:05) in the 3A girls race.
Lakes senior Jeremy Wallace finished 22nd in the 2A boys final (15:04) to earn All-State recognition.
Tim Tierney is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.