Wild and dramatic final mile has Scout Storms winning 3A Girls state title

York wins second 3A title in three years ahead of Downers Grove North, Barrington, and Prospect

By Michael Newman

Peoria, Ill – It is a great thing to see great performances at a state championship race. We have seen many at Detweiller Park during the history of the Girls State Meet. We saw many great moments during this race that started just before 1 on Saturday afternoon. No one could have predicted how this race would play out.

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The team race was unpredictable coming into Saturday with top ranked York along with Prospect, Barrington, and Downers Grove North evenly matched. The individual race was just as wide open with Scout Storms of Barrington, Liv Phillips of Naperville Central, Veronica Znajda of Prospect, and Julie Piot of Naperville North figured to be the lead runners.

Storms has the history of taking out the pace hard and daring any of her competitors to stay with her. Storms had company with her as she passed the first mile in 5:18 along with Znajda. The two had raced against each other at the MSL championships with Znajda pulling away for the win. Storms a week ago pulled away to capture the sectional win.

Znajda made her move just before the half way point of the race. “Veronica made that move in the final mile at MSL,” Storms added. “ I did not think she would make it that early.” Storms and Liv Phillips drew even with each other as the two left the triangle to the main part of the course. Znajda’s lead continued to grow as it went up to eight seconds. Phillips and Storms knew they had to go and started working with each other to close the gap.

Znajda anxiously looked back as she made the turn behind the starting line on where the rest of the competition was. She made the turn onto the down hill along Route 29 trying to hod the pace. Instead of the lead gaining for the Prospect junior, Phillips and Storms were cutting into lead with the margin diminishing from yards to inches. Znajda was hurting as her stride slowed down as Phillips and Storms passed her. A couple meters later, Znajda had come to a stop with her race probably over.

The race continued with the two runners now the leaders of the race. Officials and her coach surrounded Znajda to attend to her.

Storms and Phillips were side by side as the two made the turn onto the final straight away. With 200-meters left, Storms moved to the lead with Phillips starting to fall behind. A smile crossed her face as she neared the finish line and said, “Oh my gosh, I just did this.”

The Barrington junior’s time of 16:38.46 to win the state championship was redemption in a way. She was in the same position going into the state championship a year ago. She could not race due to an illness.

“I really worked hard for this. She (Znajda) made that move at conference and I kind of gave up in my mind,” Storms said. “When Liv (Phillips) caught up with me, we decided to go after her, work together. I know my final 600-meters is really fast, so I had that going for me.”

Liv Phillips had a great season that culminated with a 16:42.47 time to finish second. Julie Piot of Naperville North had a great final four races that included this one. Piot ran 16:54.18 to finish third. One of the feel good moments of this race was when Anna Lester of Vernon Hills approached the line, saw the time and was astonished as she ran a lifetime best of 17:03.01 to finish fourth in her best race of the season.

Danielle Jensen of McHenry finished strong as she finished 17:04.58 to finish fifth. Mia Sirios was Barrington’s second runner and a second behind Jensen running 17:05.81 finishing sixth. Nicole Poglitsch had a tremendous season this fall and achieved an over 10 second personal best of 17:05.95 to place seventh.

The forced end of the race for Znajda opened up the final mile of the team race. Prospect and Downers Grove North were slightly ahead of York with Barrington just a number of points back. The Dukes moved on the pack in the final mile of the race to grab control the race and the state championships with 77 points.

“The final mile of the race is something that we have been working on all season,” York Coach Lauren DeAngelis said addressing her team right after the race. “All that work paid off and now we are state champions.”

Pack running was the key of their success all season for the Dukes, and it showed again in this race. York put all of their runners in the top 50. Katherine Klimek moved in the final mile to end up finishing 11 with a 17:17.93 time. Maggie Owens went from injured in 2022 to all-state this fall running 17:20.67 to finish 12th. Michaela Quinn was another three seconds behind to run 17:23.97 to finish 16th. Anna McGrail had a breakout fall season finishing 21st. Maggie Quinn was the team’s fifth runner placing 28th. Sophia Galiano-Sanchez (32nd) and Gigi Hill (49th) rounded out the team’s top seven. Their top five split was an immaculate 25 seconds.

Downers Grove North has gone through an up and down last month but put in their best effort to finish second with 92 points and having four all-state runners. Lily Eddington led her team running 17:37 to finish 10th overall. Sarah Paul finished 13th as the team’s second runner followed by Alayna Todnem in 14th. Ava Gilley was the team’s fourth all-state runner finishing 24th. Sydney Hnatiuk was the team’s fifth runner placing 51st. The Trojans had a seven split on their top three runners with an overall split of 48 seconds.

Barrington scored 115 points to finish third behind Storms win and Sirios’ all state finish. Sabrina Roach (34th). Angelica Hil (50th), and Kaleigh Burns (58th) were all top five runners for the Fillies. Those three runners were separated by 22 seconds. It was heartbreak for Prospect at the conclusion of the race as they consoled their teammate Veronica Znajda while the other teams celebrated. The Knights finished fourth scoring 150 points. Meg Peterson led three-all state runners in this meet running 17:08.31 to finish eighth. Lily Ginsberg was one place behind finishing ninth. Ireland Wildhart had a breakthrough race earning all-state status stepping up to finish 22nd. Sophie Fransen (60th) and Kaitlin Skelton (80th) were the team’s fourth and fifth runners.

Naperville North scored 167 points to finish sixth led by Piot’s finish and Shania Tandon (15th) and Rianna Tandon (23rd) finishing both all-state. Naperville Central scored 213 points to finish sixth led by Phillips finishing second with three more runners placing in the top 50.