Patience a virtue for Schwartz as she claims individual state title

By Michael Newman

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Peoria – As they toured the Detweiller Park course the day before the state meet, the Dunlap girls team was loose ready for the next day. This meet was not anything unusual for the squad. All it was a chance to fulfill a goal they had from the beginning of the season (or before): to win a state championship. Finishing second like they did the year before was not an option.

Four all-state runners later and 5 in the top 46 kept Dunlap in a continued jubilation that will last in their minds forever. The Eagles won the 2A Girls state title to pair it with the track title in the spring.

“This is amazing,” Franny Verville said who has been on the past three state teams. In her final time on the course, she left a winner. “This is hard to describe. I’m just glad that this is over.”

Dunlap has been the favorite since the beginning of the season. They followed their race plan through like they had all season with great pack running.

It was a pack along with Campbell Petersen who stepped up with another great race in finishing second overall. Three all-state runners followed with Ayah Aldadah (14^th), Franny Verville (22^nd), and Abby Johnson (25^th). Kate Piper was the team’s final scoring placing 46^th. Those five runners scored 72 points for the state championship.

There were three teams that were ahead of the rest of 2A during the season as Belvidere North and Vernon Hills trailing Dunlap. It was close between the three on Saturday with those schools ahead of the rest. In most years, a score under 100 points would win a state title. Belvidere North ran a great team race and scored 95 points, but it was just good enough for second-place in 2A. Gianna Sagona led the way for the Blue Thunder finishing seventh overall with teammate Sabrina Elder placing 17^th. Madison Diercks, who ran with Sagona most of the race, slowed in the final 400-meters but still earned all-state honors by finishing 21^st. Sydnee Elder (42^nd) and Kayla McGuire (53^rd) were the other scorers for the team that had 6 runners in the top 54.

Vernon Hills also ran a great team race, but they were behind two excellent teams. The Cougars finished third for the third year in a row and for the fourth time in the program’s history scoring only 111 points. How well did this team run? Vernon Hills had 5 runners in the top 47 led by the 11^th place finish from Lauren Katz. Their split between second runner Carly Sear (28^th place) and fifth runner Kathryn Witkowski (47^th place) was only 22 seconds.

The race strategy for Waterloo’s Jenna Schwartz early in the season was to go out hard and hold on hoping she would win. That did not work well for her as she would get passed in the final part of the race.

She was not passed at the end of Saturday’s 2A Girls state race. In fact, she was the one that was doing the passing. The Waterloo junior pulled away from the field to capture the individual state title running 17:05 for the win.

“I really like going out hard and putting myself in a good position,” Schwartz said. “Today, I knew it would not be possible because the girls go out crazy fast at state. I just had to control my energy and wait until the end.”

It showed in the first mile as she was content to hang back in sixth as Dunlap’s Campbell Petersen and Normal University’s Lyndsey Wolters led the race. Schwartz made her move in the back triangle to catch-up and pass the leaders just before two miles. Danville’s Shanice Garbutt mirrored Schwartz’s move and tried to stay within striking distance of Schwartz.

The patience paid off in the final mile as Schwartz had more strength than the rest of the field. Her margin of victory was 11 seconds.

“I was looking at the time as I was coming in. I was kind of disappointed that I did not break 17 minutes,” she said afterwards. “The feeling that I had crossing the line was hard to describe.”

Petersen moved in the final five meters to pass Garbutt to finish second as both runners had the same time (17:14). Brooke Stromsland of Lakes Community was a surprise as the freshman finished fourth overall followed by Urbana’s Olivia Rosenstein in fifth (17:16) and U-High’s Lyndsey Wolters in sixth (17:18).