Storm, Red Devils advance
By Chris Yucus
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cyucus@bcrnews.com
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| Princeton’s Jacob Mead roars into the finish line Saturday at Rock Falls. Mead just missed out on an individual sectional berth, finishing 27th overall at 18:01. (BCR photo/Chris Yucus) |
ROCK FALLS — Top teammates stick together.
Hall’s Scott Janusick and T.J. Mosbach finished third and fourth, helping their Red Devils earn a sectional berth, and Bureau Valley used sixth- and seventh-place finishes from Derrick Johnson and Cody Taylor to finish second in Saturday’s Rock Falls regional.
Running on a soggy Centennial Park course, runners were caked in mud after the race. The unsure footing slowed down times, and low temperatures combined with the wet environment led to a lot of frozen toes.
“Pretty much every step you could feel the ground moving under your feet,” Mosbach said. “It was just so cold and wet.”
“The starting line looked like a football field out there,” Hall coach Tom Keegan said.
Janusick kept pace with the meet’s top two finishers, Newman’s Dylan Reyes and Jake Trancoso, for a majority of the race, before getting out-kicked in the final half mile.
“It was a pretty much deja vu of (the) Bureau Valley (Invite), where they took off the last 800 and I couldn’t stay with them any longer,” said Janusick, who won last year’s Seneca regional.
Janusick completed the three-mile regional course in 16:34, four seconds ahead of his senior teammate Mosbach (16:38).
Bureau Valley’s top finisher Derrick Johnson said that he ran most of the race without the benefit of a laced shoe, and finished sixth at 16:47, a single second ahead of his teammate Taylor (16:48).
Bureau Valley managed to place three other runners in the top-25, Trent Johnson (13th, 17:22), Ryan Johnson (16th, 17:26) and Kenny Catton (21st, 17:40), to post a score of 63, four points behind regional champs Sterling Newman.
“Our boys ran really well, we had a great race out of Cody Taylor and Kenny Catton,” said Storm coach Dale Donner. “All of our boys ran really well today.”
Hall was paced by the efforts of Austin Pelszynski (22nd, 17:34), Brandon Allen (25th,17:53), and Brett Herrmann (33rd, 18:16), to place fourth in the team competition with a score of 86.
“Coming in we knew this regional was loaded,” said Keegan of the field that included the likes of Newman, Oregon and Rock Falls. “To get out of this one is saying something.”
Princeton’s Zach Kieffer was the Tigers’ lone sectional qualifier, finishing 23rd at 17:50. Teammate Jacob Mead (27th, 18:01) just missed the qualifying cutoff, finishing sixth in the individual qualifier hunt. Princeton placed eighth as a team with a score of 194.
“I thought our boys ran OK, overall. Zach, Jacob, and Ryan (Arndt) may have had their best races of the year,” said PHS coach Pat Hodge.
• Next up for the qualifiers will be the Aurora Christian Sectional Saturday at Oakhurst Forest Preserve in Aurora.
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