Girls Conference Week Previews: Thursday Conferences

Girls Conference week is upon us and we will be breaking down each conference meet here with this series of articles this week. Today is our second major day of conference meets so take time to view our thursday conference previews.

Dukane

Dukane County is home to several great programs, they will face off here. Elizabeth Wende of Batavia is going for the triple sprint crown. She is the top seed in all three sprints, with a 12.48 25.73 and 58.29. Her biggest challenge is the 100, where Alexzandria Richardson of St. Charles North and Madeline Piekarz of St. Charles East sit right behind her with 12.50s. In the hurdles, you’ll see Sophia Dalrymple of Wheaton North take home two dubs. Her PRs of 15.04 and 44.29 are far ahead of the competition. St. Charles North dominates the distance, with Gwenn Hobson, Kara Glenn, and Julia Rodney split across all three events. Hobson and Glenn are seeded to go 1-2 in the 800, but Avery Hacker of Batavia will look to disrupt the 1600 and 3200. Hacker was an elite cross country runner, she finished 5th at the 3A state meet with a 3 mile of 16:40. She had a great mile at Distance Night in Palatine with a 5:07 and she should be able to beat any of the STCN girls. In the 3200, Maddy Romaine of Wheaton North will make herself present as well. She was the Dukane Country Conference champ in the 3200 indoors and she has the fastest PR in the field with a 10:57. She was primarily an 800 runner last year, so she will have strong closing speed. In the vault, Eva Bach of Lake Park will lead a stacked field. Bach hit a towering 13 feet indoors and she should be capable of winning here. Emerson Smith of Wheaton North will be right with Bach. Smith hit 12 feet last week and she will be preying on Bach the most. Macee Olson of Batavia and Lexi Weber of Geneva are both over 11 feet too, which makes this one of the strongest conferences in pole vault. 

FVC

The Huntley Red Raiders beef up this meet, making the field events super competitive. Dominique Johnson headlines the horizontal jumps with her outstanding marks. She is the #2 triple jumper in the country with a heartstopping 42’ 11”. Her long jump is just as amazing, with a 19’ 8” IL #2 mark. She is expected to win by several feet in both events. In the high jump, Ryleigh Mazzacano of Crystal Lake Central should be well ahead of the competition. She snagged the 5’ 6” mark indoors and she will likely snag an FVC title as well. Sienna Robertson of Huntley will dominate the throws. The returning state champ in the discus has thrown 140’ 11” so far this season. No one is stopping her from crushing the FVC. Her teammate, Elena Fetzer, hit a huge shot PR the other week and will look to capture the win. Her mark of 38’ 9” has her almost 3 feet ahead of second, she will rack up big points for the Red Raiders too. The distance events will see a fun clash in the mile between Emaline Foster of Prairie Ridge and Hudson Szymonik of Jacobs. Foster has a PR of 5:12 which sits just over Szymonik in 5:13, it will be a very close race. They will both run the 2 mile as well, but Foster will have a bigger advantage there. She ran a fantastic sit-and-kick race at Distance Night in Palatine for 10:50, she will be pretty far ahead of Szymonik in the 3200. In the sprints, you’ll see Katherine Jewell of Prairie Ridge take over. Her 12.31 and 25.27 season bests will be enough to win her the gold in both the 100 and the 200. 

SWSC

Mariyah Robinson will lead the Homewood Flossmoor Vikings to victory at SWSC. She is slated to take home the sprint triple crown and there is only one obstacle in her way. In the 100 and 200, her only competition comes from her teammates. But when she moves up to the 400, she encounters Alaina Steele of Lincoln Way East standing in her way. Steele ran an incredible 55.68 at indoor champs this season to take a narrow second place. She was the key anchor leg for the state championship 4x4 that Lincoln Way East developed last year. She is one of the most dangerous 400 runners in the state and she will be the closest thing to Robinson. Robinson has a PR of 55.23 and is the returning 3A runner up in the 400. She hasn’t run the 400 as much this season, but she still had managed to sneak in a 56.45 indoors. It will be very close between these two and I would bet on a new IL #1 to come out of this race. HF looks to take the win in the 4x1 and the 4x2, but the 4x4 will be Lincoln Way East. LWE is running the exact same team that won them a state title last year, expect a fast time. On the distance side of things, Lincoln Way Central is loading up their 4x8. The squad of Keira Faxel, Mia Forystek, Ana Dal Ponte, and Jillian Davies should be well capable of winning this race. If Forystek is around 2:15, they could even break the 9:20 border. The field events have even more talent from HF, with Jaloni Wiley and London Jarrett expecting big wins. Wiley hasn’t thrown to the capacity that we saw from her indoors, but a 40 foot toss (which is easy for her) will secure her the win. Jarrett’s season best of 5’ 4” will be more than enough, she won’t even have to move up to her PR of 5’ 6” to take home a win. The pole vault will see the closest competition of the day. McKenna Miglorini of Lockport should take the win, her PR of 13’ is way ahead of anyone else. Kylie Koehler of LWC is another 12 foot vaulter in the field who will put up a good mark. Her teammate, Cameryn Friedl, has a PR of 11’ 6.25” and will likely compete with Reese Geiger of Lincoln Way West for third. 

NSC

Kendall Flournoy of Lake Zurich is on the hunt for the elusive quadruple crown here at the NSC. She is scheduled to compete in the 100, 200, 400 and long jump and she has a shot at winning all of them. Ava Wilson of Stevenson will challenge her in the short sprints. Wilson is seeded just behind Flournoy in the 100 but just ahead of Flournoy in the 200 by .06 seconds. Flournoy should be able to win the 100, but the 200 will be at the end of her day. It will come down to how much left she has in the tank, and how much Wilson has in the tank. Wilson is also supposed to run the 100, 200, and 400, so she will be just as gassed as Flournoy. In the long jump, Flournoy has Signe Scott of Warren to compete with. Scott beats Flournoy in both PR and season best, but each only by an inch. Scott, unlike Flournoy, is only doing the long jump. This gives her a big advantage, and it’s Flournoy’s biggest obstacle in her search for her fourth win. In the distance, Lake Zurich will have Polina Krupsky and Avery Muhr looking to score big points. Krupsky should have the 800 under her thumb, and Muhr should have no problems with winning the 3200. When they arrive at the 1600, however, Lauren Hamilton of Zion Benton will be a real issue for these two. Hamilton leads the field with a 5:12, which is 5 seconds faster than both Krupsky and Muhr. Especially since both of Lake Zurich’s girls are doubling back, I think Hamilton will walk this one in. Lake Zurich has even more weapons in the field, with Arisa Bisofa expected to take home the wins in both the shot and disc. The freshman has thrown 140 feet in the discus this year and she leads this field by 14 feet. It would take something catastrophic for her to lose the disc, but the shot is actually close. Mikayla Boone of Libertyville has thrown 37’ 0” this season, which is just 6 inches behind Bisofa’s season best of 37’ 7”. Bisofa’s PR of 38’ 11” is out of Boone’s range, but she hasn’t hit that since indoor. Boone has a shot at taking her down, but it will still take a monster throw from her to make it happen. 

NIC 10

One of the most explosive meetups in high jump we’ll see all weekend will go down at the NIC 10 conference meet. The high jump field has the returning 3A state champ, the returning 3A state runner up, and they aren’t even seeded first!. Jaeda Benford of Rockford Auburn hit a terrific 5’ 7” at the Conant Twilight invite and leads both Zariah Burnett of Guilford and Jordan Dimke of Hononegah. Burnett won the state title with a towering 5’ 7.75”. Dimke hit the same mark, but on her second attempt instead of her first. All three of these athletes are going to put up some incredible numbers here, I couldn’t be more excited. Boylan Catholic will run the distance, with Kylie Simpson of Hononegah being their only issue. Simpson has incredible range, with 2:15, 5:07 and 11:08. She can score points in any event, but it’s most likely she’ll go for the 800 or the 3200. This is because Reese Kohnle of Boylan will absolutely destroy anyone in the mile. Her 4:56 from Distance Night in Palatine puts everyone else to shame, she will certainly walk away with the NIC 10 title. The throws will feature Natassja Bowman of Guilford who will shatter the rest of the competition. She throws some meteoric marks, with 40’ 6” and 140” in the shot and disc. She makes this field look silly with her insane numbers, she will win both events with ease. 

Apollo Conference

The Mahomet Seymour distance squad is not to be trifled with, they are going to wallop this field and take home big points. Auggie Gaudio and Henry McMurry were a dynamic duo during cross country and they haven’t missed a beat. They were both key relay legs for the 7:53 4x8 that Mahomet ran last week and they will be looking to take home wins in anything from the 800 to the 3200. Ethan Ramirez of Mahomet Seymour will be a solid 800 runner and can help take some of the workload off of Gaudio and McMurry’s shoulders. He ran 1:58.94 at the spartan classic and could easily score big points in the 800.