Illinois Prep Harrier Cross Country Awards – Girls 3A & Overall Runner of the Year

16:02 at Detweiller says it all for Glenbard West’s Perez

Madeline Perez’s 16:02 at state was the performance of the year in Illinois.

When I decided to do the Runner of the Year Award, I looked at the top runners out of all the classes. I wanted to see if I could include a runner from the other two classes in the overall award. I made a reasonable judgment that it would not be possible. Class 3A for Girls this year has been memorable to say the least. When the course record at Detweiller Park can be broken twice in a season, it was more than memorable.

Kaylee Flanagan of Lake Park started the season off on a hot note. In her first four big invitationals, she set four course records including the 16:20.3 that she ran at the Richard Spring Invitational at Detweiller Park in the middle of September.  Her first loss of the year was a 12^th place finish at the Wheaton North Falcon Classic. It seemed that she was not the same after that. She did finish 4^th in the 3A race.

Emma Fisher of York was a runner that we saw a vast improvement from. She had two wins during the year: the first meet of the year at the Leavey Invitational and then the West Suburban Silver Meet where she defeated Madeline Perez.

Courtney Ackerman of New Trier had a good regular season but seemed to get better as the month of November went along. She had some statement wins during the year at the First to the Finish Invitational and the Wheaton North Falcon Classic. Courtney finished third in the 3A state meet running a personal best of 16:27. She qualified for both the Nike Cross Nationals and the Foot Locker Nationals. She was one of two runners from Illinois to qualify for both races (the other was Scott Milling of York). Ackerman finished a strong 6^th place in horrible conditions at Portland. Last Saturday in San Diego fighting off a head cold, she ended her season by finishing 18^th.

It is hard to argue against Madeline Perez of Glenbard West but her season left the ROY debate open. The junior started off the year with a strong win over Ackerman at Hinsdale. The next two weeks she placed 2^nd to Flanagan at Lake Park and then at Peoria. In the race that saw Flanagan break the Detweiller Park record, Perez ran 16:29.

After that race, she had an upper repertory and sinus infection that she tried to run through with affected her performances. During that period, she finished 9^th at Wheaton North, was defeated by Fisher in two races. The West Suburban Silver race that she lost to Fisher, the gap was only 10 seconds. The week before, Fisher had defeated her by thirty seconds.

Then she started to feel better and she picked up where she left off. She dominated both the Lake Park Regional and the Niles West Sectional. Her time of 16:28 just missed Flanagan’s course record, but it showed that she could run a special race at state.

Boy did she ever!

When she passed by the two mile point at the state meet in 10:36, she was not racing against any competitor but the clock and history. Her 16:02 smashed Flanagan’s record by 18 seconds. She will have a chance to go under next fall in her senior campaign. A fun fact is that her coach Paul Haas ran for York at the state meet in 1986. His time was 15:56. So she has that to go after as well!

Therefore, I am proud to congratulate Madeline Perez as the Illinois Prep Harrier 3A and overall Girls Runner of the Year in Illinois.