The women’s cross country team placed fourth in the Central Suburban League (CSL) conference meet on Oct. 19, with sophomore Anne Brennan bringing home All-Conference honors for the second consecutive yearas well as fourth place at the IHSA Regionals.

According to head coach Fred Kocian, the girls have had a fairly steady and busy season, placing fifth in the Warrenville High School Invitational and 11th at the Peoria Invite on Oct. 5.

“[The season has] been going great,” Kocian said. “We’ve been in several invitationals which [had] over 20 schools running. We’ve been having a lot more success than we’ve had in the past few years.”

The team experienced tremendous growth, according to senior Captain Jamie Studenroth, and is more focused and driven than ever with key runners such as Brennan, freshman Amelia Papajohn and freshman Katie Woodrick.

“There is less complaining and more of a crave to try hard and succeed,” Studenroth said. “[The] mindset is now that [we had] a bad meet if we don’t get a trophy, which is a very different mindset compared to [past seasons].”

According to Kocian, the team’s strength was tested at the Peoria Invite.   The team was succesful in a difficult situation, and that is what made Peoria stands out to Kocian.

“[Peoria] is one of the largest and toughest invites we attend, and I think they gathered some confidence because [all of the girls] ran good times,” Kocian said. “[The humidity] made it hard to breath, and when you’re running hard for three miles little things like humidity can affect [the runners].”

The girls ran in the IHSA Cross Country Regional on Oct. 26 at Niles West High School. The meet resulted in Brennan and Papajohn placing 13th and 14th, respectively. According to Brennan, it was not each runner’s best race, but they continued to push each other.

“We packed together in the beginning, and […] our top five all ran around 35 seconds of each other, which is an awesome thing for our team to do,” Brennan said. “We are hoping for everyone to go out and run the best race they can at sectionals.”

According to Kocian and Papajohn, although the girls have had a good season, they have yet to peak and are always striving to be the best team possible.

“What’s nice to say is that we have not run our best race yet,” Kocian said. “We can’t say [there was a] particular turning point, but I’m hoping [Sectionals] is where we can say, ‘This is where we put it together, and this is where we can see the team work.’”

A goal for the team, prior to sectionals, was to make it to state as a team, according to Papajohn.

“At sectionals, [it was] really hard to make it to state as a team, but all we [could] do is run our hardest and do the absolute best we can do,” Papajohn said. “No regrets.”

The girl’s concluded their season, earlier than they hoped, on Nov. 2, and will not be advancing to state.