NLCC Championships

What a day to be a Sequoit!  On a rainy and overcast morning, the Sequoits shined at the Northern Lake County Conference Championships.  The first race of the day was the varsity girls.  On paper the girls looked to place 6th in the race.  However, when the gun went off the team stepped it up.  Junior Natalie Hill was once again the top Sequoit in the race.  Hill placed 11th earning all conference and taking home her 3rd all conference medal in 3 years.  Freshman Chloe Hampson had her best race of the season running 20:48 and was the 2nd Sequoit to cross the line.  Hampson was followed closely by Izzy Mateja, Natalie Svarc, and Allison Morris, placing 28th, 30th, and 31st respectively.  Not far behind Morris were seniors Jessica Lamberty (33rd) and Alexis Lind (42nd).  Morris, Lamberty, and Lind all ran season PR's.  With all these season bests and a tight team pack, the team edged out a good Waucounda team and placed 5th overall, improving on last year's 6th place finish.  

The boys varsity was up next.  Coming into the meet it looked like the Lakes Eagles were the pre meet favorites as they defeated the Sequoits earlier in the year in Peoria.  However, the team wasn't going to go down easily.  At the mile, the Sequoits jumped out to an early lead, however, at mile #2 the Eagles narrowed the gap and the score was in a dead heat.  At this point every runner knew what was at stake and knew we had a shot to win.  Charlie Smith pulled away over the last 200 meters and won his first conference championship in 15:45.  Junior Mike Volkmar was the next Sequoit and placed 13th overall.  Eric Hart, Andrew Johnson, and Alex Besson did what they had to do by staying in front of a very good Lakes pack of runners and placed 16th, 17th, and 18th respectively.  Josh Linck and Joe Sculuca rounded out the top 7 by placing 22nd and 24th and just missing out on earning all conference.  In the end the Sequoits had won the team championship defeating Lakes 65-70 and winning its first conference championship since 2001.  

The JV girls and boys followed and as the race started so did the rain.  Tiana Fox and Samantha Wanke lead the way for the girls and placed 7th and 15th overall while leading the team to a 3rd place finish.  Contributing to the 3rd place finish were Allyson Pierce (23rd), Allison Kane (25th), and Alex Knight (27th).  All 5 runners in this race ran a seasons best for 3 miles!

The JV boys weren't to be out done by the varsityboys.  They came out and dominated the race by putting 6 runners in the top 10 and 7 in the top 20.  Sophomore Luke Menzies went for the win, but came up just short and ran a seasons best 17:54 and placed 2nd overall.  Menzies was followed by Owen Lane (3rd), Max Barton (4th), Kyle Miller (5th), Brandon Jordon (6th), Ben Ticsay (10th), and Logan Phillips (20th).  The boys won the NLCC JV race by scoring only 20 points and defeating 2nd place Round Lake by 44 points.  

The last race of the day was the open co-ed race.  Senior Gracie Mateja and freshman Annabelle Guerra were the 2 Sequoits in the race and ran a very gutsy race as the course was now a sloppy mess with all the rain and previous racing that destroyed the course.  Mateja came close to a seasons best running 27:59 and Guerra ran an 8 second personal best running 28:00.  The boys showed just how deep the team is by putting 10 Sequoits in the top 17.  Junior Sebestian Scofield coming back from injury and running his first race in nearly 3 weeks picked up the win and lead a strong pack of Sequoits to victory.  Danny McPherson, Ryan Johnson, Matthew Lawrence, Ryan Campbell, Jack Holston, Alex Barbarise, Walker Winkler, Kaleb Kotlow, and Brad Gaydovchik all placed in the top 17.  Jack Bay (22nd), Zach Cook (31st), Tyler Davidson (32nd), Cale Wolf (33rd), Jeff Adamczyk (39th), Joey Pyles (43rd), Kole Powers (49th), Brian Wimer (57th), and Marcus Trudell (78th) were the next Sequoits to cross the line.

It really was a great day to be a Sequoit!!!