By FRED KRONER
There is an expression that “many hands make light work.”
If translated into a relevant statement for cross-country, it might be re-phrased: “many feet make quick work.”
Mahomet-Seymour’s boys’ cross-country demonstrated the validity of the sentiment on Saturday (Oct. 16) while accomplishing the greatest feat possible in its sport within the IESA.
In the 25th consecutive year that the school had qualifiers for the boys’ state meet – either by teams or individuals – the Bulldogs ran away from the field and won the state championship trophy for Class 3A, the largest of the state’s three classes.
The meet at Maxwell Park, in Normal, attracted 27 full teams.
Coach Lisa Martin’s Bulldogs had a five-runner composite score of 109 points to outdistance team runner-up St. Charles Wredling (156 points) and third-place Arlington Heights Thomas (181 points).
Two M-S athletes in the school’s all-eighth-grade lineup captured all-state honors while securing places among the top 15 in a field of 234 participants.
Auggie Gaudio ran the 2-mile course in 10 minutes, 54.5 seconds to finish in fourth place at state. Teammate Ethan Peterka finished 11th in 11:14.0.
A third Bulldog narrowly missed all-state recognition, which goes to the top 25 runners in each class. Henry McMurry placed 27th in 11:28.8. He was 1.9 seconds away from all-state honors.
Other M-S athletes in the top five scoring positions on Saturday were Parker Wilkins (54th in 11:52.1) and Justus Vrona (70th in 12:00.9).
The first five Bulldogs finished within 1:06.4 of one another.
Also representing the school on Saturday in the 234-runner race were Emmett Kearns (98th in 12:25.5) and Camden Wood (138th in 12:47.1).
The previous best team finish for M-S in state cross-country meets were matching fourth-place finishes by back-to-back boys’ teams in 2011 and 2012, both in Class 2A.
Martin didn’t sense any nervousness in her runners on the eve of the state finals.
“We had a pasta party Friday (at the Grotelueschen residence),” Martin said. “The coaches were nervous, but the kids were running around and having fun.”
The coach expected nothing less from the 10th M-S squad where she was the head coach.
“This is probably the least serious group we have ever coached,” Martin said. “They don’t get so stressed at the (starting) line that they get in their heads.”
The preparation which started last summer was still out in full force in the days leading up to state.
“We gave them workouts (during the week), and they demolished them,” Martin said.
The Bulldogs traveled to Normal on Saturday in a highly decorated yellow school bus, the interior décor attributed to a group of parents.
The runners, Martin said, “were quieter than they usually are,” while travelling, a fact she attributed to the surroundings. “We (coaches) decided they were overstimulated.
“They were awkwardly calm.”
At the race site, Martin continued a tradition of having an inspirational message for the team from a former M-S all-stater. Saturday’s words came from 2014 junior high all-stater Olivia Bunting, which the coach said, “softened them up.”
Martin’s pre-race expectations were for “a state trophy.”
Four of those are awarded in each of the day’s races.
While she was confident in her athletes, outwardly she sported an attitude she called, “cautiously optimistic.”
She explained the reason.
“When you have 11-, 12- and 13-year-old kids, cautiously optimistic is the way to go,” Martin said. “We set goals that are comfortable, but that don’t over-inflate (expectations).”
In her heart, she was controlling another set of feelings.
“We have amazing eighth-graders,” she said. “We knew this would be a special year.”
As the boys’ race was ongoing, Martin had several opportunities to see – and cheer for (as her voice can attest) – the Bulldogs.
At each location, she had a similar feeling.
“I kept saying, ‘They look good. They look good,’” she related. “Sometimes you know, and today we did.”
With a squad that features 125 total runners (between the boys’ and girls’ teams), M-S seldom sent the same group to the starting line for the meets.
“All of our individuals had highs and lows along the way,” Martin said. “We only ran this variation (of boys) one other time, at our home invitational.
“They put it all together today. They ran as well as they could.”
Gaudio and Peterka are the 23rd and 24th all-staters for M-S in boys’ cross-country. This year marked the third one that the school had at least two all-staters in the same year.
Gaudio’s fourth-place finish is the third-highest individual placement at state. Only Jordan Johnson (first in 1997) and Scott DeWitt (third in 1992) finished higher at state.
In the school’s history, M-S has had eight junior high teams win IESA team state championships.
Cross-country is the third sport to finish No. 1 in a season.
Boys’ basketball earned a state crown in 2009.
The wrestling program has captured six state championships: 1984, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996 and 2009.
The traditional thinking in sports is that championship teams are ones which have reached that tournament previously to experience and understand the challenge that awaits.
For M-S, none of the Bulldogs had ever competed in a state cross-country meet before. They qualified in the COVID-plagued 2020 season, but the state meet was canceled.
When the current eighth-graders were in sixth-grade, the school’s lone state representative in the boys’ meet in 2019 was eighth-grader Davin Tietz.
Martin said several of her runners had an idea of what to expect on Saturday’s biggest state stage.
“Some of the kids went to state and supported Davin,” Martin said, “but to get there, and run with him, that didn’t happen.
“That makes this year absolutely more remarkable.”
The caveat is that virtually every qualifying school in 2021 was in the same position since there was not a state meet held in 2020. Only schools which had sixth-graders on their competitive roster in 2019 would have had state experience.
Last year’s top seven M-S runners on the boys’ team featured four individuals who are now high school freshmen (Lukas Nykaza, Ty Clark, Sean Dady-Dreher and Ethan Ramirez) and three others who ran at state on Saturday, including all-staters Gaudio and Peterka.
Vrona was the third athlete who was also among the top seven a year ago.
“We had four who were brand new to the varsity this year,” Martin said. “They made great strides, and that happened during the summer.
“They all worked hard to prepare for this season.”
Martin said it would be impossible to select a single most-improved runner from her team, but noted that McMurry and Wilkins – who was battling a heel injury – would be at or near the top of the list.
Coaches are allowed to submit a roster of 10 names for the state roster so that three alternates are available in case of injuries or illness.
M-S’ 10-member group included two runners (Kearns and Preston Sriver) who participated in the sport as sixth-graders and then returned this season following a one-year layoff.
In many sports, success at the junior high level leads to great expectations at the high school level. Due to the format of cross-country, it generally does not fall into that grouping.
Junior high cross-country runners compete at the 2-mile distance. In high school, the races are 33 percent longer. Standard high school courses are 3 miles.
“They make cross-country its own sport in high school,” Martin said. “A lot of kids who are middle-distance runners in junior high can do it.”
In high school, true middle-distance runners are usually not the most successful cross-country runners.
Martin believes that many of her strong corps of eighth-graders will stay with the long-distance sport.
“I’m pretty sure a lot of these kids will go on to run,” she said.
By the time Saturday’s awards’ presentation was held, there was little doubt about the meet’s outcome.
“They post everything live, so you know how you did before the awards’ ceremony,” Martin said. “We definitely knew that we were looking at a first-place finish.”
She made sure, however, that there was no premature celebration by her runners.
“I needed to see it,” Martin said. “I said, ‘Wait. Let’s make sure it is official.’”
And when the announcement was made, unbridled exuberance followed.
“Then it was time to celebrate,” Martin said.
The awards’ ceremony didn’t finish the day for the Bulldogs.
The best cross-country team in the history of Mahomet-Seymour Junior High School received a fire truck escort back into town at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday. The fire truck met the team bus west of town at County Line Road, after the bus exited Interstate-74 at Mansfield.
The fire truck escort transformed the attitude inside the bus.
For the majority of the ride back from state, Martin said, “they were just being kids.”
Once the sirens started sounding, she added, “they turned into excited state champs.”
The impromptu celebration ended at the junior high school, where a number of parents had gathered.
For Martin, Saturday’s outcome reflected a first, and not just in the standings from the meet.
In 2011, in Tom Appenzeller’s final year coaching the team, M-S placed fourth at the state meet. Martin was an assistant coach.
A year later, the M-S boys’ program had another fourth-place finish, but has no trophy to show for its performance in Martin’s debut as head coach.
“That was our last year in Class 2A,” Martin said, “and that was the only year they only awarded three trophies at state, not four.”
In 2015, Martin’s Bulldogs placed fifth, two points away from a state trophy.
However, the runner-up team in Class 3A was later disqualified. There was no second-place trophy that year as that school’s finish was vacated.
“They didn’t bump teams up,” Martin said.
The official order of finish that fall was first place, third place, fourth place and fifth place. Only the schools designated fourth-place, or higher, finish received trophies.
With the biggest state trophy now residing in possession of Mahomet-Seymour, Martin said, “maybe now we can forget those we didn’t get.”
And also, there is time to look ahead.
“We took a bunch of seventh-graders (to watch the state finals) and had two on the top 10 (Tate Bode and Jamison Griffen),” Martin said. “They got to watch and learn.
“They are eager to go. We have several seventh-graders waiting their turn.”
Uniform collection and an all-school assembly will mark the official end to the 2021 junior high cross-country season at Mahomet-Seymour.
And then?
“We’ll start Fun Runs in June,” Martin said.
Helping Martin coach the M-S cross-country teams this year were Matthew Mills, Lori Clark and Conan Jurkowski.
In Class 2A, the state runner-up team was Tolono Unity.
