Storm seeking a top five finish at state

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The lead pack from the Princeton Invitational, including (from left) Sterling Newman’s Dylan Reyes, Hall’s T.J. Mosbach, Newman’s Jake Trancoso, Bureau Valley’s Derrick Johnson and Hall’s Scott Janusick, should all be in the all-state hunt in Saturday’s 1A state cross country finals in Peoria. (BCR photo/Kevin Hieronymus)

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It’s been a long and winding road for the area cross country runners. A few fortunate ones hope to find their treasure at the end of the road Saturday morning in Peoria in the IHSA state cross country finals in Peoria.

The Bureau Valley boys advance as a team, having placed third in Saturday’s Aurora Sectional. They will be joined by the Hall duo of senior T.J. Mosbach and junior Scott Janusick, and Princeton sophomore C.J. Rhodes, who will be the lone county representative in the girls’ meet, which kicks off the day at 9 a.m. at Detweiller Park.

While coach Dale Donner takes his fifth Bureau Valley boys’ teams to state, including a second-place finish in 2001 and a sixth-place trophy a year ago, he treats every trip as if it was his first.

“You want to make it good for the seniors. We’ve got two seniors on our team, Trent (Johnson) and Jeremy (Culver). It’s going to be a special trip for them. We let them make a lot of choices on some things,” he said.

But Donner lets them know they’ve still got some business to take care of.

“You go down and enjoy it. It’s a reward, but our work’s not done. We still want to finish in the top 10, maybe sneak into the top five,” he said. “We were sixth last year, we’d like to match that. That’s a tall order to fill.”

The veteran Storm coach says it’s an odd year, in that there’s usually four teams battling for the three trophies. No. 1 ranked Beecher is runaway favorite, “but after that there’s 8-9 teams that have a chance to sneak in there and do something,” Donner said.

Along with Beecher, favored teams coming to Peoria will be TRAC-8 rival and No. 2 Sterling Newman, the Aurora Sectional champion, defending 1A champ Elmwood/Brimfield, 2008 1A runner-up Westmont and No. 5 ranked Carlinville, Donner’s hometown. The Storm were tied for 12th place with sectional champ Canton, who has flown under the radar this year and could climb to second.

Derrick Johnson is the Storm’s top returning runner from last year’s state meet, the highest placing (47th) freshmen in the state. If he runs a good race, Donner says he has a good shot at running down all-state honors along with Hall’s Janusick and Mosbach

Donner also turns to sophomore Ryan Johnson (no relation), senior Trent Johnson (Derrick’s brother) and junior Cody Taylor to lead the Storm pack.

Other squad members include sophomore Kenneth Catton, junior Nate DeVenney, who was the Storm’s No. 3 man at state last year but has battled a back injury this season, senior Jeremy Culver, juniors Sam Carper and Josh Crook and freshmen Dylan Dykstra and Michael Lotspeich.

The Storm will have some company with the Hall duo of Janusick and Mosbach. They are usually never far apart with Janusick finishing fifth at Aurora with a time of 15:49 and Mosbach right behind in seventh in 15:53.

While Janusick earned all-state honors with a 24th-place finish a year ago, Mosbach goes down for the first time, realizing a goal he set one year ago when he failed to make it out of sectionals. A day didn’t go by when he wasn’t thinking about state.

“I would have been devastated if I didn’t make it,” he said.

Janusick said having his running partner along should lead to a better performance.

“I think that was kind of my downfall last year, just going by myself and really letting the nerves getting the best of me. We can just help each other and calm each other down,” he said.

“It’s nice to have a familiar face next to you as you run that race,” Hall coach Tom Keegan said. “Familiarity is something you like to have. I think those two are pretty comfortable being around each other.

Rhodes became the seventh girl in school history to qualify for state, securing the seventh and final qualifying berth at Aurora with a 16th-place time of 19:41. She says she feels as if “she’s on top of the world,” making state in her first year of cross country while splitting time with the sophomore volleyball team.

PHS coach Pat Hodge sees the Malden product placing somewhere around 60th and perhaps cracking the top 50.

Rhodes follows the footsteps of Jennifer Knoshbin (’83), Mary Ellen Markee (’88), Jenny Faber (’88, ’89), Hannah Pinter (’93, ’94), Rebekah Faber (’01, ’02) and Megan Birkey (’01, ’02) to qualify for state at PHS.

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