Rich, Malia Race To IHSA Cross Country Finals

Peaking at the end of the cross country season is the goal of every high school runner in the state of Illinois, but it’s easier said than done.

Two Evanston seniors accomplished that goal and kept their seasons alive Saturday at the Class 3A Hoffman Estates Sectional meet.

Andrew Rich and Rory Malia each secured individual qualifying berths in the boys and girls races with top 30 finishes and earned the right to advance to the Illinois High School Association state finals next Saturday in Peoria.

Rich ran a personal best time of 15 minutes, 13.56 seconds over the 3-mile course at Busse Woods and placed 27th in the boys race, while Malia earned a return trip to State with her 24th place effort of 17:59.68 in the girls race.

The top seven teams and top 10 individual runners who aren’t members of those teams automatically qualified for the state meet at Detweiller Park in Peoria. The Class 3A girls finals are set for 1 p.m., with the boys race to follow at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Rich admitted that he experienced a few nervous moments waiting for the official results to be tabulated, as meet organizers separated the team qualifiers from the individual hopefuls. But his time drop of 25 seconds from his previous best was rewarded with a spot in the IHSA finals.

He wasn’t able to pull Evanston’s entire squad along for the ride, though. Rich and Lucas Linder were the only seniors in the starting lineup --- which included three freshmen --- as Evanston settled for 15th place in the team standings with 358 points. The top seven teams advancing included Lake Zurich (85 points), Prospect (91), Hersey (103), Glenbrook South (131), Fremd (172), Palatine (195) and Libertyville (216).

Rich claimed the 9th individual slot and wasn’t sure he’d be back at practice again this week.

“It was a little nerve-wracking for a couple of moments there,” said the ETHS senior. “My time was pretty good --- it was a huge improvement for me --- but I didn’t expect to run that fast and it really didn’t register for me at first. I felt like there were a lot of runners ahead of me, but it was a joyful moment when I finally found out I made it.”

First-year head coach Ronald Tiongson was more certain about the outcome.

“At first Andrew told me he didn’t think he made it. But I told him let’s wait and give it a few minutes,” Tiongson said. “I think there’s a big chance you made it.

“Andrew is very focused and very dedicated. He came into the season with the goal of qualifying for State as an individual. He was in the low 16s (time-wise) last year and we kinda knew that the times required to get to State were like 15:15 or 15:20. But in the last two or three weeks he wasn’t able to drop any more than into the 15:40s --- not even 15:30 --- and I said you’ll have to run the race of your life Saturday to make it to State.

“That’s just what he did.”

“Last year I ran a 16:13 at the sectional and I knew it was an ‘out there’ goal to make it to State,” Rich recalled. “But that was my goal, 100 percent, and starting in the summer I really wanted to make it happen. I really wanted to see what it would be like in that (state final) environment.

“The sectional is a fast course and I knew people would be running fast right from the get-go. I just tried to stay in the upper quarter (of the field) for the first mile, until the field spread out and I could start picking people off (moving up in the field). I’ve been running against a lot of those guys all year and the Glenbrook South guys would always beat me in the last mile or so because I’d get disconnected from the field.

“The sectional was a real challenge for me. Running at State will be a celebration.”

Evanston’s next best finisher was sophomore Andy Preuner, who missed out on an individual qualifying spot by about 20 seconds as he placed 46th overall in 15:33.49. The Wildkits also counted junior Evan Kleiman, 105th in 16:24.86; freshman Leonidas Patton, 110th in 16:28.59; and freshman Dalton Wooller, 120th in 16:37.50.

Also competing for ETHS were freshman Dylan Wooller, 125th in 16:44.01, and Linder, 137th in 17:18.18.

Tiongson utilized a different training approach from the start of preseason workouts and didn’t expect his runners to go all-out at every single race this fall, priming them for what he hoped would be a strong finish to the year.

It definitely paid off for Rich.

“This was just a perfect time for him to peak,” Tiongson praised. “In some of the races this year we just asked them to be at 90 or 95 percent and we didn’t expect 100 percent all-out running in every race. We just expected them to run tempo in some races. I told them we will strike when we need to strike.

“And when Andy Preuner beat Andrew in a race in the middle of the season, I think that helped Andrew push himself even more. All of our top five guys ran their best times at the regional (ETHS placed fifth as a team), so I’d say we had a pretty good season.”

“The last couple of years my body has been so beat up at the end of the year, that I was burned out and felt miserable,” Rich explained. “Now my legs still feel fresh. I think the biggest tweak Coach brought to the program was that we did more slow, easy runs than we used to do. We did more easy jogs in the summer to build up our pace and because of that I was a lot more consistent this year. And I know I still have something left in the tank.”

Malia also has something left in her tank --- but for a different reason. Evanston’s only representative in the girls race punched her ticket to State for the second straight year --- surviving the state’s toughest Class 3A sectional --- after dealing with severe tendinitis in her knee that caused some doubt about the senior’s ability to be at her fastest in the postseason.

She had to cut back on her training and competing for the first half of the season, but came on strong in the postseason.

“Rory had a slow start to the season, and she worked really hard to turn it around and make her goal of getting to State again,” praised girls head coach Beth Arey. “That tendinitis in her knee was really a major setback. She ran less and did more cross training, but she’s so committed and she did all the work she needed to do. She ran a PR (personal record) by 30 seconds at the sectional.

“She was positioned at the farthest spot on the left side of the starting line Saturday, so she really had to get out fast. Right before the race I was pointing across the field to remind her to get out there fast, and I never saw her get out like that before and still maintain it for the entire race. She normally runs different paces during a race --- but she really raced Saturday.”

“It was nice to know I could get back to where I was last year,” Malia said. “I was definitely worried about making it back to State. I wasn’t as fast (during the season) as last year and the races were a lot harder than they should have felt. I knew I had to work for it.

“Things changed for me at that Flight Night at Loyola. I dropped 30 seconds that night and that was a big confidence boost for me. That’s when I could finally see myself getting back to 100 percent again.”

Unlike last fall, when Malia had to sweat out the final results before earning a State berth, this time she didn’t leave any doubts.

“I knew I had to get out fast to get in the position I wanted to be in,” said the Evanston senior. “In the first mile I just tried to find girls I thought I should be running with (familiar competition) and stick with them. It felt like I was sprinting the whole race --- and it felt good to feel like that, because it doesn’t happen very often. That feeling made me more confident that I could maintain that faster pace.

“That was the best race I’ve ever run. I thought it was super-ambitious when I set a goal to run under 18 minutes – and it was very unexpected when I did it. That’s the best I’ve ever run, by far.”