A quartet of Batavia sprinters teamed up to account for two of the three meet records that fell. Depth helped Geneva successfully defend its team title. And Karina Liz provided a “wow” finish.
Yes, there were story lines aplenty Friday night at the 41st annual Kane County Meet at St. Charles North.
Liz, the Aurora Central Catholic senior and Missouri recruit who has two Class 2A state titles in the 800 on her resume, added a fourth county title in the 800. For the first time, though, she didn’t set a meet record.
She won in 2:18.88, but one event later, finished a disappointing sixth in the 400 with a 1:03.57.
Two events later, Liz was back for the anchor leg of the Chargers’ 1,600 relay. She took the baton from teammate Abby Fioresi in third place, 60 meters behind leader Batavia.
What happened next left the crowd buzzing.
“I just wanted to run fast,” Liz said. “I’m happy to be a four-time county champ and I’m excited for what the future holds, But I wasn’t really satisfied with that 800 time. And my 400 was bad.
“I got mad and just wanted to win it for my team (including Stephanie Hall and Alex Johnston). I don’t want to sound cocky, but I knew I could do it.”
She ate up ground with her long strides, finally catching the Bulldogs’ leader an instant before the finish line to win by .33 of a second.
“We had a nice lead, but man, Liz ran a great leg,” Batavia coach Justin Allison said. “She nailed it. Hats off to that team.”
The Bulldogs were trying to make a clean sweep of the relays. Sam DelMundo, Darby Edmonson, Tori Ortiz and Hannah Schlaman won the 400 and 800 relays in meet record times of 48.96 and 1:44.12.
Teamed outdoors for the first time, Allison’s 3,200 relay of Emma Stephens, Alexa Andrews, Dakota Roman and Marygrace Golden won in 9:32.28.
“They really rocked it out,” Allison said. “They knew they had potential to run a school record (9:28.60) but just missed it. All four stepped up.”
The same was true for Geneva. Coach Peter Raak got four wins, four seconds and four thirds in the meet as his team scored 133 points. Runner-up Batavia, which won five events, had 93.5 points.
The Vikings dominated the distance runs with Emma Erhardt knocking 26 seconds off her seed time to win the 3,200 in 11:10.68 and McKenzie Altmayer the 1,600 in 5:02.68.
Kristin Huggins (5-3) won high jump and Georgia Reed won the 300 hurdles (46.50).
Kaneland got wins from Nicole Sreenan (12.2) in the 100 and Allie Heinzer in a meet record-tying 24.9 in the 200 as well as a 1-2 pole vault finish from Sydney Davidson and Lexi Guerra (both 10-3) to take third with 93 points.
West Aurora was missing several injured sprinters but got wins from Tamia Rayford (59.12) in the 400 and Rajiah Andrews (15.82) in the 100 hurdles.
“I just wanted a good run because my 100 (fifth place) wasn’t as good as I thought it should be,” Rayford said. “I thought Karina (Liz) was right there with me so I pushed through that last 100 of the 400.”
The Blackhawks were fifth with 48.5 points, 10 behind ACC.
St. Charles North’s Hannah Schilb won the long (18-2.50) and triple (38-9.50) jumps, breaking the 38-0.75 record of Shanice Andrews of West Aurora (2010) in the latter.
Batavia throwers Jada JonesMartin and Samantha Healy won discus (115-6) and shot put (36-3), respectively.
Twitter @RickArmstrong28