STORY: DGN at Plainfield South Regoinal

After being an alternate for the Downers Grove North boys cross country team’s 2014 Class 3A state meet lineup, sophomore Jacob Ridderhoff was hoping to contribute this season.
The usual pack of him and fellow sophomores Nick Chudzik and Ryan Birkmeier could play a huge factor in the Trojans’ chances to advance to the 3A state meet via the Hinsdale Central Sectional at noon Saturday, Oct. 31, at Katherine Legge Memorial Park.
“My goal is to just run my race and just kind of push my teammates or be pushed by my teammates. And just go to state. That’s the goal,” Ridderhoff said.
“I know it’s going to be close, but I think we can pull it out. We’ve just got the higher skill level and we’ve got the pack where me, Chudzik and Birkmeier can just stay right together and come on in right together.”
With one of the younger lineups around, the Trojans finished third at the Plainfield South Regional Saturday, Oct. 24, at Hammel Woods Forest Preserve in Shorewood.
Junior Alec Danner (15:13.2) dominated the 3.0-mile race to win by 15.7 seconds on a course slowed by rains the night before. He extended the Trojans’ streak to four consecutive individual regional champions.
Ridderhoff was 10th (16:00.1) with Chudzik (16:03.3), senior Robby Prescott (16:04.7) and Birkmeier (16:08.4) 13th, 14th and 15th. Freshman Matt Moravec (16:19.8) was 19th and junior Andrew Marek (16:33.4) 27th.
This was Prescott’s first race since Locktoberfest Oct. 3.
The Trojans (53 points), who only needed a top-six finish to advance, finished behind Downers Grove South (33) and Plainfield South (43). Romeoville (127) was fourth.
“Downers South ran well. They looked pretty good. We didn’t really run all that great and we can run better,” Downers North coach John Sipple said.
“We need to go out and get in where we need to be and weren’t where we need to be. We had one of our hardest workouts on Tuesday so I wasn’t expecting us to feel good, to really knock it out of the park.”
To advance to the state meet Nov. 7 in Peoria, the Trojans need a top-five finish at the Hinsdale Central Sectional – and three of the spots are all but spoken for by projected top-five state contenders.
With No. 1-rated Sandburg, No. 2 Lyons Township and No. 6 and two-time defending state champion Hinsdale Central joining the sectional field, the three teams from Plainfield South are essentially fighting for the last two team qualifying spots with the likes of St. Ignatius, Shepard and Benet Academy. In the final DyeStatIL 3A top-25 regular-season rankings Oct. 20, the Trojans were No. 13 with Downers South No. 15 and Plainfield South No. 19.
The seven highest finishing individuals not among the qualifying teams also advance.
“(Regionals) was just basically a triangular,” Sipple said. “We’ve got to knock off one of those guys to get to the state meet. It’s still really close and it’s going to be very tight so we’ll see how it goes. It’ll be fun.”
The Trojans are seeking their 18th state team berth. The only time they have achieved three straight state trips is from 2002-04 under former head coach Will Kupisch, still a very active member in the program.
Danner and Prescott are the only returning members from last year’s state lineup that finished 13th. Chudzik also was among the alternates.
“(As a state returnee), I need to keep the team’s morale up. We know we can do this. We just have to stay focused and keep working hard,” Danner said.
“Definitely one strength is that we seem to definitely peak when it matters most, in the postseason. It seems that other teams are usually really strong in September but they kind of slow down as the season goes on whereas we always manage to pick it up and show our strength in late October, November.”
At regionals, the Mustangs’ top-five finishers were 2-5-6-8-12 and Plainfield South’s 3-4-7-9-20.
Danner picked up the one point for first place comfortably over Downers South’s Jack Lalonde (2nd, 15:28.9) and Plainfield South’s John Partee (3rd, 15:42.7).
With the inclusion of tougher runners at sectionals, Danner hopes the time gap among them also will include a scoring gap. At the West Suburban Conference Silver Division Meet Oct. 17, Danner was sixth behind three LT and Hinsdale Central runners.
“I definitely wanted to get that (regional) win because I wanted to get in front of Lalonde and Partee. I just wanted to get that (one) point for us,” Danner said. “For the bigger meets, I think if I can just be high up there individually it’ll make a much bigger impact.”
“When we plug in LT, Sandburg and Hinsdale Central, things change a lot and our advantage (with Danner) becomes increasingly more of an advantage,” Sipple added. “We still need to run really well. And I think we will.”
Danner’s victory also had personal significance. He followed the regional victories by the Trojans’ two most recent all-state runners – graduated Ryan Clevenger last season and 2014 graduate Zack Smith in 2013 and 2012.
“I feel actually quite honored to do that because I’ve always looked up to Zack and Ryan in that aspect,” Danner said. “They’re just really good leaders and they just brought a special aura to the team. I’m just trying to emulate that. I’m just trying to carry on the tradition of that.”
Having Prescott, previously the Trojans’ No. 2 runner, get a race under his belt at regionals was a big lift to the lineup. He had been cross training the past three weeks to return from injury.
“Without Robby, just the fifth guy, we didn’t know who it was going to be but with Robby we knew that we were going to have at least somebody with us, if not better,” Ridderhoff said.
And a healthier Prescott almost certainly will do better at sectionals. Given his training base, an understandably excited Prescott went out perhaps too aggressively and struggled finishing the regional race.
“There was a little rust there and he hasn’t been running really at all. A different race plan (at sectionals) will benefit him greatly, and he’s back running again, too, so that will make a big difference,” Sipple said. “We don’t need a monstrous race out of Robby to make it (out of sectionals). We just need him to run what he’s capable of running right now.”
More race experience should help the rest of the lineup.
Ridderhoff is excited to contribute coming off what he felt was one of his best races of the season, even if the start didn’t go so well.
“It was a big stage and I was really nervous for it. It was a big step coming from last year, but I was really excited for it. I knew that I could do well,” Ridderhoff said.
“I fell at the beginning. The ground was soft, my feet went back and I tripped. Then also on a turn it was all muddy and some people slipped and fell. I slid a bit but I was able to get right back up.”
Near the conclusion of the race, Ridderhoff passed Prescott and Chudzik to finish 10th, 1.5 seconds ahead of Romeoville’s Zeke Cabanas, the first finisher from other than the top three teams. Ridderhoff was .3 behind Plainfield South’s No. 4 finisher.
“Definitely one of my better races, just in terms of how I felt,” Ridderhoff said. “The time wasn’t where I would have liked it, maybe because of the course, but I still felt that I had a good race.”
“It was a solid race for Jacob. Out of all of the guys, I’d say he’s the one who ran probably the most normal,” Sipple said.
Moravec also had a strong outing in his varsity debut after taking second in the freshman race at the Silver Meet. Moravec finished .7 and 1.0 ahead of Plainfield South’s No. 5 and 6 runners and ahead of Downers South’s No. 6 runner.
“Just 100 meters or so into the race, all of the nerves went away and it just felt like another race,” Moravec said.
“I was a little more nervous just because it was a varsity race and I hadn’t been running there before. Once we got into the race, it all calmed down and all of our teammates started working together and it turned out really well.”
Like his teammates, Moravec said that times were affected by the softened ground. Strong winds didn’t play as much of a factor because about half of the race was spent in a forest area.
“All of the trees and leaves kind of blocked the wind,” Moravec said. “(The race) was a little surreal but it wasn’t really because it was a varsity race. It was more because the orange trees gave it a fun feeling to the race. Going into the forest, there were these beautiful orange leaves everywhere so it kind of took your mind off the race and kind of feel good in there. It wasn’t a really spectator friendly race.”