Manfrin wins FVC title

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CRYSTAL LAKE – Dundee-Crown junior Anthony Manfrin approached Saturday’s Fox Valley Conference Cross County Meet with modest expectations.

Manfrin battled a sore right calf for most of the season and eventually discovered a cyst had developed in the leg, which he had drained last week. Still, his training had been disrupted and he had dropped out of his previous two big Saturday races.

“Coach [Tom] Smith said to just get through it and run how you feel,” Manfrin said.

Manfrin apparently felt just fine. He broke away from Cary-Grove’s Phil Fairleigh in the final 800 meters to win the boys race in 16:35.9 at Veteran Acres Park.

McHenry’s Jeff Sabatka (16:46.5) was second and Fairleigh, the defending champion, was third in 16:55.0.

Fairleigh did lead his team to its fourth consecutive team championship with 43 points. D-C (88) was second, followed by Prairie Ridge (93) and Crystal Lake Central (95).

In the girls race, Huntley won the team title, its first since joining the FVC in 2003, with 85 points. D-C (90) and Crystal Lake Central (97) grabbed the other top two spots.

Woodstock junior Kayla Beattie won her second FVC individual championship in 19:27.9, 33 seconds ahead of Crystal Lake South’s Kristina Aubert. Beattie also won the individual title as a freshman.

Manfrin wasn’t so much focused on winning as he was helping his team.

“The big thing was everyone running together,” Manfrin said. “We wanted to build up our team confidence.”

Sabatka’s time (16:46.5) was a personal best on the Veteran Acres course, and he passed Fairleigh in the final 400 meters.

“I was expecting to be running for third place with [Crystal Lake Central’s] Ryan Alvarez and some other kids,” Sabatka said. “I’m really happy with this.”

C-G’s seniors saw or were part of FVC champions every year in high school.

Eddy Gibbons and Matt Klein were right behind Fairleigh, and Ryan Gustafson (13th) and Jason Maxwell (18th) also took All-FVC honors.

“That was pretty important, to win it all four years of high school,” Klein said. “That’s pretty special. We had a pretty good race today, but we still need to get better for the regional [next week].”

Beattie ran without her sister, senior Elise, who was nursing a sore hip and wanted to rest before next week’s regional meet.

“I wanted to go out and run a comfortable first mile, then a solid second mile in the back section,” Beattie said. “My time was slower today than the Crystal Lake South Invitational. I’m feeling good and I’m staying healthy.”

Huntley coach Dana Burner and her runners nervously added up the unofficial totals and thought they had won before officially hearing it.

“It’s pretty amazing,” said junior Haley Loprieno, who led the Red Raiders with a fourth-place finish. “I can’t believe we just won. We knew we had a chance, but we didn’t want to get our hopes up too high and not win.”

Huntley placed its five scoring runners in the top 27, as D-C did. Katie Gross, Monique Robinson and Claira Himmel finished 12th through 14th.

“It’s very good,” Burner said. “We’ve been looking for it since last year when we finished second to Woodstock. We were waiting and seeing if we could be ready at the right time.”