Cary-Grove runs past Huntley for girls title

Prairie Ridge's Jessica Ayers (right) takes off after receiving the baton from teammate Kyra Saley during the x100-meter relay at the McHenry County Track and Field Meet in Cary on Friday. (Lauren M. Anderson - landerson@nwherald.com)

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CARY – Second place never looked better for Cary-Grove as sophomore Carly Loeffel crossed the finish line in the 4x400-meter relay.

At that point, being runner-up to Huntley was good enough. Loeffel’s strong anchor leg enabled the Trojans to hold off Huntley for the team title Friday at the McHenry County Track and Field Meet at C-G’s Al Bohrer Field. C-G finished with 80 points, edging out Huntley at 791⁄4 and Woodstock with 741⁄4.

Although Loeffel, one of the area’s top athletes, did not win a first-place medal at the meet, she was instrumental in C-G’s victory with four second-place finishes. Loeffel took the baton in third place for the anchor leg, about 10 meters behind Crystal Lake South’s Marianne Collard.

Loeffel passed Collard, who had taken second in the 1,600-meter run less than a half-hour before, and held her off the rest of the way.

“I had such a rush of adrenaline,” Loeffel said. “The wind was bad [on the back stretch], but when I got to the last 100, the whole team was there on the turn, and I got another rush.”

The team title was C-G’s third in school history and its first since 2005. Junior Kelly McCoy’s victory in the 100 high hurdles was the Trojans’ only win of the meet, and they suffered a setback when Lindsay Young, who was seeded second in the 800, was ill and didn’t place in that race.

Young, who also was on the 4x400 relay, was sent home, replaced for the final race by freshman Paige Freund. C-G had 72 points, while Huntley had 691⁄4 heading into the final race, which meant that Kathie Wollney, Molly MacInnes, Young and Loeffel had to finish ahead of Woodstock and within one spot of Huntley to win. They finished almost one second ahead of South for second place.

“This was one of those times when second was good enough,” C-G coach Mark Anderson said. “I can’t say much of anything right now. It was a rough night. We had to fight for every point.”

Huntley 4x400 anchor Amy Fanella celebrated with her teammates just the same. Fanella set a meet record in the 300 low hurdles at 45.40 seconds, which was her goal coming into the meet. Prairie Ridge’s quartet of Sam Nirva, Shannon Calahan, Kyra Saley and Jessica Ayers won the 4x100 and 4x200 relays, setting a meet record at 50.99 in the 4x100.

Fanella heard her time at the finish line of the 300 and ran to assistant coach Brad Gallaugher, yelling, “I got it!” before hugging him.

“I can’t even tell you how excited I was for that race,” Fanella said. “I’m still so happy. One hurdle I went over with the wrong lead leg, but I got back on the [correct] leg the next hurdle. I was so pumped for that race.”

Woodstock’s Kayla Beattie (3,200, 1,600) and Crystal Lake South’s Alexis Wells (100, 200) each won two events Friday. Denita Brown (400) and Collard (800) were the other individual champions.