A McHenry County first?

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CHARLESTON – Something transpired Saturday that likely never was seen before, and might not be seen again.

Or, it might be seen again next year.

Woodstock’s Beattie sisters, junior Elise and sophomore Kayla, both cracked 11 minutes in the Class 3A 3,200-meter run at the IHSA Girls Track and Field State Meet. Blue Streaks coach Steve Erwin, a 25-year veteran as head coach and as much an authority on the subject as anyone, couldn’t remember two girls from the same McHenry County-area team pulling off such a feat before.

“You can count on one or two hands how many have ever broken 11,” Erwin said.

So two from the same team doing it in one afternoon – at state – is extremely rare. And the manner in which the Beatties did it was equally remarkable.

Kayla ran a subpar race at last week’s Huntley Sectional and was in the slower heat Saturday, meaning she didn’t have the state’s best runners to push her. She ran alone for the last five laps and burned out a 10:56.70, grabbing sixth place. Elise then ran in the faster heat, although she was on a bit of an island behind the two leaders and well ahead of the rest, and cranked out a 10:51.65 for third place.

“Mentally and physically it was better for me to focus on the 3,200,” said Elise, who scratched from Friday’s 1,600 preliminaries to conserve her energy. “I knew I could lay it all on the line for this race. I like the 1,600, but I like the 3,200 a lot more. This was one of the first races all year I’ve seen competition besides my sister or [Crystal Lake South’s] Kristina Aubert.”

Kayla came back and took seventh in the 1,600, perhaps benefiting from an extra two hours rest between the races because she was in the slower heat.

“[The 1,600] was OK, I started in last place, and I ran a lot of the race in Lanes 2 and 3,” Kayla said. “It goes too fast to recover from that.”

Her 3,200 performance was amazing in that she was pacing herself.

“The pack went out fast, and after the second lap I ran the rest on my own,” Kayla said. “I wish I would have raced those other girls, I think I could have done better.”

Kayla was able to see the splits on the scoreboard and hear splits on the other side of the track from assistant coach Bill Macaulay.

“Both of them had incredibly gutsy runs, because they were both kind of on their own,” Erwin said.

Joined at the hip: In the McHenry County, Fox Valley Conference and Huntley Sectional meets, you barely could slide a piece of paper between Kayla Beattie and Crystal Lake South’s Marianne Collard. The sophomores would run together the entire race, then be shoulder-to-shoulder down the stretch, neither wanting to give in to the other.

So how appropriate was it to see them, again side-by-side, at Saturday’s 3A 1,600 finals? The last 200 meters they battled back and forth, with Beattie finally finishing in 5:03.05 and Collard in 5:03.14.

“I had a flashback,” Collard said.

Beattie won the McHenry County Meet by 2 seconds. Collard won the FVC Meet in a photo finish, then won again at the sectional by less than a half-second.

“I might have started a little too fast today,” Collard said. “This is my first year running the 1,600, and I was happy to be in the top 12. So this is great.”

Sharing the credit: Elise Beattie made a point of praising Macaulay’s work with the distance runners, something boys runner Marshall Happ also has done all season.

Beattie said Macaulay’s coaching has helped so much and also running with the boys in cross country and track has made her and Kayla stronger and faster.

• Joe Stevenson covers high school sports for the Northwest Herald. He can be reached at 815-526-4513. He also can be reached by fax at 815-459-5640 or by e-mail at jstevenson@nwherald.com.