Front-runners

Lauren M. Anderson - landerson@nwherald.com Crystal Lake South's Marianne Collard sprints to the finish to win the Wauconda Invitational at Lakewood Forest Preserve on Saturday. (Lauren M. Anderson ())

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WAUCONDA – Crystal Lake South junior Marianne Collard found herself in unfamiliar territory Saturday.

In the final mile of the Wauconda Invitational Cross Country Meet, Collard was out in front, all by herself.

“It was lonely,” she said. “It’s scary because you don’t know how far the next girl is behind you. I didn’t look back, though. I just listened to what the fans were yelling.”

Collard put some distance on Johnsburg sophomore Kelly McNeely and won the race, which had about 30 schools competing, in 18:27.80 over the 3.1-mile course at Lakewood Forest Preserve.

South won the girls team title with 131 points, nine ahead of Glenbard East.

McNeely, who has run with Collard in four races this season, finished in 18:49.21, 13 seconds ahead of the next competitor.

South’s Kristina Aubert (fifth), Huntley’s Haley Loprieno (sixth), Crystal Lake Central’s Taylor Miller (eighth) and Central’s Molly Flood (10th) were other local runners in the top 10.

Cary-Grove’s Phil Fairleigh won the boys race in 15:28.31, erasing the course record of Wheaton-Warrenville South’s Jon Popejoy by more than 10 seconds. C-G scored 87 points to take second place behind Oak Park-River Forest (56).

Crystal Lake Central’s Ryan Alvarez was third in the boys race, followed by Richmond-Burton’s Ian Sanchez and Matt Lytle and McHenry’s Jeff Sabatka, who took fourth through sixth.

Collard didn’t have an idea she might be running by herself in front of the pack heading into Saturday’s race.

“There’s a lot of schools we don’t compete against, so I didn’t know who was out there,” Collard said. “I just came out and tried my best. This is my favorite course.”

Collard and McNeely have run almost step-for-step in four races this season and are 2-2 against each other.

“It’s fun to go out there with [Collard],” McNeely said. “She started pushing at the 1 1/2- or 2-mile mark, and I tried to go with her. I was thinking try to get in the top 10 here, then I saw myself in the top bunch [early in the race] and surprised myself.”

South coach Niki Lydon lauded her No. 3 runner, Nina Wajrowski, for her effort in Saturday’s race. Wajrowski had struggled with her breathing last week and wasn’t sure how she could perform.

“She said, “I don’t feel well,’ and I said, ‘I don’t want to hear about it, you have 18 minutes to run, then we’ll talk,’ ” Lydon said. “She really ran well. She came up from somewhere around 50th place to get 22nd in the last mile.”

Wajrowski said she just didn’t feel like she was getting easy breaths.

“My breathing held me back, but I just kept trying to move up,” Wajrowski said. “I felt like I was slowing down, but I kept pushing. No matter what was going on, I was trying to go faster.”

It was the first time Lydon remembered South winning the meet. Cary-Grove (169) took fourth, and Crystal Lake Central (179) was sixth.

Fairleigh’s goal was not to set the course record – he didn’t even know what it was until after the race – but it happened anyway.

“Our first few meets, coach [Layne Holter] has us hanging back, and he wanted me to stay there until the 2-mile mark,” Fairleigh said. “Then I can do what I need to do to win.”

Fairleigh defeated Oak Park-River Forest’s Malachy Schrobilgen by almost 6 seconds.

“I think I’m in great shape now,” Fairleigh said. “I’m a lot better than I was last year, and I’m still doing 70 miles a week. When we start pulling back I’m sure I’ll feel fresher.”

Central was fifth in the boys team race with 170 points, South (232) was seventh and R-B (294) was 10th.

“We were trying to stick with Fairleigh the whole time,” said R-B’s Lytle, who ran right with Sanchez most of the way. “That’s the way we’ve run this year so far. We worked really hard this offseason. That [around 16:00] was our goal times.”