Five Storylines: Richard Spring Classic in Illinois

By Michael Newman

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There were some great performances at last weekend’s First to the Finish Invitational on the Detweiller Park course and the second of three big meets in Peoria should produce similar results. The Richard Spring Classic begins at 9 a.m. Central on Saturday. 

The 31th edition of this meet should continue to build on the legacy of this event. This meet is named after Richard Spring, who graduated from Bergan High in Peoria in 1982. He ran on Bergan’s two state championship teams in 1980 and 1981. He finished third individually in the Class 1A state meet in 1981. He went on to compete in cross coungry and track for Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill. While he was a member of the Augustana track team, Spring died in the spring of 1985, his junior year. The meet started as the Spaulding Invitational in 1982 up until 1987 when the school consolidated with Bergan to become Notre Dame High School. Close to 70,000 runners have participated in this race. 

Here are five storylines to follow this weekend. 

1 - Hart goes after third straight win. Katelynne Hart of Glenbard West was a double All-American last December at Nike Cross Nationals and Foot Locker. The junior will look for her third straight win in at Richard Spring. 

Hart started off her season last Saturday by running a controlled 16:35 on Lake Park’s 3-mile course to win the race by 37 seconds. Times compared from the Lake Park course tend to be 8-10 seconds slower than the Detweiller Park course. She ran 17:06 to win in this meet as a freshman and 16:35 in her win last fall as a sophomore.

A time around 16:20 is not out of the question on this fast course. Judy Pendergast ran 15:53.9 at the 2015 IHSA State Cross Country Championships to set the course record. There are no other runners in this field that have run faster than 17 minutes on this course, so again, it could be Hart racing against the clock depending on what kind of tactics she uses. 

2 – Wheaton-Warrenville South could sweep team titles. The Wheaton-Warrenville South boys opened their season last week at the Wauconda Invitational with a dominating win without two of their top five runners, Scott and Sean Maison. The Tigers still had a 33-second split on their first four runners off a 15:41 5,000-meter run by William Hauenstein. With the Maison brothers back on the line in this meet, South should be the class of the field. The two Maison brothers typically run with Hauenstein and Jacob Kluckhohn. Another 33-second split, this time through six, could make this team very hard to beat. 

After watching the top three Illinois girls teams run last Saturday at the First to the Finish Invitational, it is now the girls team from Wheaton-Warrenville South looking to prove their case as one of the top five teams in the state. Samantha Poglitsch won her opening race at Wauconda last Saturday, running 18:10 for 5,000 meters and winning by 29 seconds ahead of teammate Laurel Moneysmith. Poglitsch is a good bet to finish in the top five, Moneysmith in the top 15. If there is a team that could stop the Lady Tigers, it could be Glenbard West. The Hilltoppers have Hart and Katie Hohe, who could offset W-WS up front. It will come down to the 3-5 runners that each team has. Both squads ran 27-second splits on the group of three in their respective meets. Getting those packs closer to the leaders will be the key in deciding who wins. 

3 – If not Wheaton-Warrenville South, then who could win the boys race? It looks tough, but not impossible, for a team to get close to Wheaton-Warrenville South in the boys varsity race. Since the Tigers will be at full strength for the first time this season, there could be teams that could challenge for the team title. 

Hersey tied Glenbard West for the team title, losing on a sixth-runner tiebreak, two weeks ago at Fenton. The Huskies have strength in the front with Josh Methner a possibility to win the individual race and Max Svienty and Ryan Buch as top 15 possibilities. The gap between four and five was 39 seconds in their last outing. A split similar to that on Saturday could hurt Hersey’s chances to win the team title. 

St. Charles East is a team to watch, running a 10-second split on three runners, 45 seconds on the top five, in last weekend’s race at Lake Park. If top runner Bob Liking finishes in the top 10 it could improve this team’s chances to get the second spot. Neuqua Valley won on a sloppy course last weekend at the Forest Park Classic in St. Louis with a 60-second split for its top five. A truer sense of NV's pack should be revealed Saturday. The Wildcats do not have the front runner that they usually have after projected No. 1 runner Zach Kinne moved away from Illinois over the summer. They do have some good pack runners that could put them in position to challenge for the second spot.

4 – Fast times possible in the boys race. We thought the times would be slower at the First to the Finish Invitational when Rory Cavan ran the fastest 3-mile in the country at 14:24. The course conditions improved last Saturday as more races went off. There has been no rain for more than a week, letting the course firm up even more. A faster winning time could be in the cards. 

Methner finished two seconds behind Cavan in the Fenton race two weeks ago, with Cavan using his kick to win similar to what happened at FTTF. Thomas Shilgalis of Naperville Central opened up his season running 15:00 for 3 miles in August, cruising the final mile in 4:52. The All-American in last June’s New Balance Nationals Outdoor mile is running with more confidence and will challenge for the win. Last week’s race was pushed by Tommy Brady, who went through the first mile in 4:40. If there is no one else to push early on, a winning time of 14:30 or slower is likely. Mathias Powell of Mahomet-Seymour and Fiker Rosen of Quincy are contenders. There could be 7-10 runners under 15-minutes and that’s about it. 

5 – Freshmen could make impact in varsity races. Freshmen made their presence felt with high finishes in the girls races last week, such as Katrina Schlenker of Batavia winning the 3A race and Latin School’s Ava Parekh finishing second in the 2A race. 

Three more freshmen could be among the leaders this weekend. Lianna Surtz of Rosary set a course record (17:15 for 3-miles) by more than 20 seconds at Yorkville, finishing ahead of all of nationally ranked Yorkville’s runners. Surtz is not afraid to push the pace. She has a big task by racing Hart. Surtz did run 17:21 on this course at Detweiller at Dark in July. Aly Negovetich of Grant Community opened her freshman season with two race wins, including a victory over Downers South’s Brenna Cohoon at Fenton. Negovetich was 21 seconds ahead of Cohoon in that race. The Downers Grove South junior ran 17:07 at Detweiller last Saturday. Negovetich may be able to run under 17 minutes.  

Rosen, of Quincy, gained notoriety during his eighth grade season, setting the IESA Middle School state meet record in running 9:43 in the 2-mile. He broke Illinois legend Jorge Torres’ record by five seconds. Rosen has adapted nicely to high school running and alread won two small invitational races and finishing fifth at the Granite City Invitational. This will be his first race at Detweiller Park. A time for a freshman under 14:50 is worth noticing. Former York runner Charlie Kern ran 14:35 as a freshman in the 2014 state meet. Let’s see how far under Rosen goes under 15 minutes on Saturday morning.