Evanston Runners Advance To Sectional

Evanston’s boys cross country team advanced a full squad and Rory Malia earned a repeat trip to the sectional level in the girls competition on Saturday at the Class 3A Loyola Academy Regional meet.

ETHS placed fifth in the team standings with 135 points and advanced with ease. The top six finishing teams automatically move on to the Hoffman Estates Sectional, along with the top five individuals who aren’t members of those qualifying teams.

Evanston scored 135 points and trailed only Prospect (30), Glenbrook South (55), New Trier (100) and Maine South (122) in the 13-team field. Also advancing was Niles West with a team score of 163.

Senior Andrew Rich paced the Wildkits with an 8th place individual finish in 15 minutes, 38.56 seconds over the 3-mile course. That was just two spots ahead of sophomore teammate Andrew Prauener, who ran 10th in 15:44.31.

Next best for Evanston were freshman Dalston Wooller, 35th in 16:29.65; junior Evan Kleiman, 40th in 16:44.87; and freshman Dylan Wooller, 42nd in 16:45.94.

Glenbrook South’s Junior Lopez (15:08.42) and Frank Hackl (15:13.38) ran 1-2 followed by four runners from Prospect in the chase for individual honors.

In the girls race, Malia --- who qualified for the Illinois High School Association state finals as a junior --- had no trouble advancing with a time of 18:32.38, good for 9th place overall. The Wildkits also counted junior Josephine Solar, 40th in 20:15.32; sophomore Eliza Edgerton, 48th in 20:51.50; senior Shaili Peters, 50th in 21:10.42; and freshman Lucia Lindberg, 52nd in 21:17.20, on their way to a 9th place effort in the team competition with 199 points.

New Trier claimed the regional team title with 40 points, and Prospect’s Meg Peterson was the individual champion, clocked in 17:45.00.

The sectional will be held Saturday, Nov. 1 at Busse Woods. The girls race begins at 10 a.m., followed by the boys race at 11:15 a.m.