Methner break course record; Fitzpatrick just misses; Hersey, Lyons Township win team titles at Palatine

By Michael Newman

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PALATINE, Ill. – It did not take long for Hersey’s Josh Methner to make his move at Saturday’s Palatine Invitational. In his last race in Peoria on Sept. 15 weather conditions dictated that he wait until the last moment to go. Nearly perfect running conditions at Palatine’s Deer Grove East Forest Preserve changed that idea.

Meet Results

“I really did not have any race plan today,” Methner said. “I just sensed it was the right time to move.” 

A 4:50 first mile in the race seemed sluggish for the Hersey junior. He picked up the pace and never looked back. Methner crossed the line in 14:32.3 breaking the Deer Grove East 3-mile course record set by York’s Jack Driggs in 2010.

“My coach (Kevin Young) was yelling at me telling me where everyone was at,” Methner said. “I made my moves based on that. I expected this kind of time today based on the workouts from the past week that I did.”

Methner’s move was not a dramatic one, though it looked like that at first. Maine South’s Tommy Brady and York’s Ethan Kern were the only runners that were willing to go with Methner. 

“Today I raced terribly. I let everything get to my head,” Brady said. “I didn’t see it (Methner’s move) coming.” 

Methner ran a consistent 4:50 pace in this race as he went through 2-miles in 9:40. Kern was about three seconds back at that point with Brady another few seconds back. Brady passed Kern in the final mile to finish second (14:42). Kern held on for third (14:52) holding off Plainfield South’s Christian Knowlton (14:56) and Edwardsville’s Roland Prenzler (14:59) in the top five. 

The win by Methner was one of the many reasons why Hersey ran away with the team title with 86 points and over 100 points ahead of St. Xavier KY who scored 188 points. Methner was joined in the top 10 by teammates Max Svienty and Ryan Buch who both ran 15:11 and finished ninth and tenth. Thomas McCarthy (22nd) and Colin Safford (42nd) rounded out the top five runners for Hersey. Their split in that top five off Methner was 70 seconds. The split from Svienty to Safford was 31 seconds. 

Oswego East scored 195 points to finish third ahead of St. Louis University (236 points) and Downers Grove South (238 points). 

The story was the same in the girls race for Barrington’s Molly FitzPatrick, who came into the meet as the prohibitive favorite after her second-place finish two weeks ago at Peoria’s First to the Finish Invitational. In the last half of the race, it was Fitzpatrick vs the clock. The sophomore just missed the 16:51.7 course record set by Kaylee Flanagan in 2011 as she crossed the line in 16:52.0. It was startling that she got close to the record. What was a bigger eye-opener is that FitzPatrick finished 32 seconds ahead of the rest of the field.

“I saw the clock at the mile in 5:35 and thought that I could go faster than that,” FitzPatrick said. “I wanted to stay with the pack the first half of the race and then go from there. I just went a little earlier than I had planned.” 

FitzPatrick did move just after the mile similar to what Methner had done. In her race situation, by the 1.5-mile mark she had opened the lead to 10 seconds ahead of a pack of Latin School’s Ava Parekh, Anne Marie Jordan of Palatine, Isabelle Christiansen of Oswego, and Abby Korak of Edwardsville. 

“I gained confidence from the Peoria race,” FitzPatrick said. “I look up to the runners that I was around in that race. Suddenly, I realized that I could run with them.” 

Now it’s Fitzpatrick that everyone is chasing. 

Jordan, a Mid-Suburban League rival, finished next in 17:24. Kate Dickman of Lyons Township finished third (17:28) and had to come from a long way back in the race to achieve that. She was near the back of the race in the first 400-meters. 

“I tend to go out slow and work my way up. I was just a little farther back today,” Dickman said. “It is something we do as a team going out slower and then working the second half of the race.” 

It was a race plan that Lyons Township executed again in this race working their way up through the pack. The Lions placed all their scorers in the top 32 to win the team championship with 87 points. Barrington (151 points), Palatine (163 points), New Trier (166 points), and Prospect (183 points) rounded out the top five. 

“We talked about in the warmup that this was the meet that clicked for us,” Dickman added. “We just went out there. We love running and working together. It paid off today.” 

The split on the pack behind Dickman was only 28 seconds in this race led by the 12th place finish of Marta Kogucki. Maggie Abbs (18th), Sarah Barcelona (29th), and Claire Williams (32nd) followed.