C-G runs away with county repeat

McHenry's Ashley Conway (left) crosses the finish line ahead of Cary-Grove's Sarah Ryan to give the Warriors the victory in the 4x100-meter relay Friday at the McHenry County Track and Field Meet at Crystal Lake Central. (Catalin Abagiu - cabagiu@nwherald.com) (Catalin Abagiu ())

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CRYSTAL LAKE – Cary-Grove girls track coach Mark Anderson clutched the championship trophy his team had just won Friday night at the McHenry County Track and Field Meet and congratulated his winning boys counterpart at McHenry, Dave D’Angelo.

“A little flip-flop from last year,” Anderson said.

C-G, which edged Huntley by three-quarters of a point last year, cruised to the team title by 57 points Friday night at Crystal Lake Central’s Owen Metcalf Field. The Trojans won five events and finished with 139 points to successfully defend their crown. Huntley was again second, but this time with 83 points.

“I’m not going to complain,” Anderson said. “Everyone had a good dose of success.”

C-G was so dominant that even when its favorite, Sarah Ryan, did not win the 200-meter dash, her teammate, Annie McGarrigle, did. Ryan earlier won the 100 and anchored C-G’s winning 4x200 relay.

“I felt like I had a really strong start [in the 200],” McGarrigle said. “And I just kept pushing through. I didn’t expect to win that.”

Woodstock’s Kayla and Elise Beattie swept the 3,200 and 1,600 races, both with times faster than the previous records. Kayla won the 3,200 in 10:43.06 and Elise was second in 10:47.42, wiping out Woodstock’s Katie Hartmann’s record of 10:56.8, set in 1998.

In the 1,600, the Beatties and Crystal Lake South’s Marianne Collard ran faster than the meet record of Crystal Lake Central’s Haley Staples (5:12.06), set in 2006. Kayla Beattie ran 5:04.64, Elise ran 5:05.14, and Collard ran 5:06.77. Collard earlier set the 800 meet record in 2:19.24.

“It was a good day,” Kayla Beattie said. “I came into the 1,600 thinking I needed to run it differently. I knew there were girls who would take off in the second half and we ran a negative split [faster second two laps].”

The Beatties and Collard separated themselves from the group in the last two laps. Beattie said her goal time in the 3,200 was 10:40, to which she was close.

Collard broke C-G’s Madeline Aufmann’s fully automatic timed meet record of 2:20.86, set in 2007.

“I didn’t even know what [the record] was,” Collard said. “I just focused on keeping my time down, and I was happy with the results.”