DGS Girls CC wins IHSA Regional!

IHSA Regional Champions!

The Downers Grove South girls cross country team took 1st place at the IHSA Lyons Township 3A Regional meet on Saturday. The meet was the first in the 3-week state series that will occur over the final 3 weeks of the season.  It was also the first of 3 possible showdowns between the WSC Gold champion team, DGS and the WSC Silver champion team, Hinsdale Central.  The Mustangs took the Regional round one in a close 29-40 race.

Brenna Cohoon (Sr) led the Mustangs with her individual championship! Brenna had to battle Emma Watke (Hinsdale Central) over the 3-mile course for the crown. Watke, who finished 2nd in the state in the 1600m last spring, was close behind Cohoon for the first mile or so. Around the 1.5 mile mark, Brenna started to pull away. With about 1/2 mile to go in the race, Brenna was holding on to about a 6 second lead and then she began to widen the gap. Brenna eventually won the race by nearly 15 seconds, crossing the finish line in 17:20.

Erin Reidy (Sr) also ran a great race, finishing in 3rd place ahead of Melissa Jachim (DGN) and McKenna Revord (Hinsdale Central).  Reidy and Revord ran together for much of the first 2 miles before Reidy moved ahead. The top 5 finishers earned All-Regional honors.

Downers South held a slight edge in the scoring over Hinsdale Central after each team’s first two runners. But another key scoring element was a strong race by Sophia McNerney (So) finishing in 6th place. Sophia’s great kick, put her into the chute ahead of the Hinsdale’s 3rd runner (Catie McCabe-8th place) to increase the Mustang scoring lead at that point to 5 points.

Alex Spang (So) and Rebecca Diddia (Jr) landed the knockout punch with strong kicks of their own, nearly catching McCabe and finishing 9th and 10th respectively.  The Hinsdale Central final scorers finished 10-15 seconds behind them in 12th and 13th leaving the final score to be 29-40. Kelsey Casella (So) and Renee Kowalski (So) were the final two Mustang finishers with their 16th and 17th place finishes in the field of 42 runners.  Lyons Township edged out Downers Grove North as the 3rd place team 74-78. All four teams compete against each other again next Saturday.

Full meet results can be found on Athletic.net. Individual times and splits can be found on the Schedule/Results page. And pictures from the meet are on the Pictures/Video page.

DGS will compete in the IHSA Hinsdale Central Sectional meet at Katherine Legge Memorial Park at 11:00am this coming Saturday. The top 5 team finishers at KLM will automatically qualify for the IHSA State meet. It will likely be another dual meet with Hinsdale Central for the Sectional title as the two teams go at each other again in round 2, this time on HC’s home course.