Joliet Steelman Cross Country Invite Receives Interesting To Close to Call Match Up
Joliet Central Runner – Courtesy of The Herald News
The breezy wind and sunny weather could not have been more perfect for a Saturday morning, as Joliet Central hosted its annual Steelman Invitational Cross Country meet at Channahon Community Park.
Both boys and girls held their own separate races with different times, allowing different schools to place from first place to fifth. In the boys section, it was a too close to call match between the Plainfield South Cougars and the York Dukes. It was not only a great start for the season for these two teams, but an unexpecting close race match-up seeing how the Cougars are 14th ranked and the Dukes at the high rank of 3rd place. But the cougars had the upper hand with having stronger fourth and fifth runners placing 12th and 13th in the overall race. Which edged the Dukes 40-42, placing four of their top runners in the top eight.
Coming in sixth place was Joliet Central with an overall score of 159, followed by Lincoln-Way West coming in ninth with an overall score of 235, Joliet West 10th place, and coming in 11th place Providence Catholic. Joliet Central had an early lead with its top lead runner, Oscar Tejeda, finishing with a time of 15:47 and coming in ninth place. While Lincoln-Way West’s lead runner was John Stiglic, coming in 11th place. “I tried my best to PR in my time and see what I could do on my home turf,” says Oscar. “I know this course by heart and know I could always improve my time. I am happy I was able to pass up 5 runners before the finish line, including John Stiglic, who I thought I would never pass till later in the season when we meet again in mid-October.”
For those who don’t know what the term “PR” means in cross country, its stands for “personal record.” In other words, your personal record of time improvement each time you run in a meet or invite. Coming from personal experience, the tradition in cross country is that if you PR, improve your time from before, you get free ice cream, popsicle sticks, sometimes even cash from coaches on the house at the end of a long week’s practice. This not only motivates the whole team to PR, but signifies a family bond of unity to challenge each other friendly. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect.
