Teams' seasons conclude

Bolingbrook's Mariana Hernandez was the best finisher of either Raiders' squad. She crossed the finish line in 12th place. LARRY KANE / FOR THE SUN

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So close, yet so far away.

The Bolingbrook boys and girls cross country teams came into their own difficult regional with their eyes set on making to the Lockport Sectional.

However, both fell short by just a handful of points.

"This is really tough news but all of the girls really ran a great race today," Raiders coach Brian Zeglin said. "The regional is a lot more talented than it was last year and we knew that we had to race our best race and other schools had to step back a bit but that didn't happen. However, I think we made another step in the right direction for our program."

It wasn't all bad news for the Raiders as three girls advanced individually. Mariana Hernandez, Shelby Manning, and Zuri Carbajal all punched their ticket to the Lockport Sectional.

Hernandez finished the highest of the Bolingbrook runners, coming in 12th place in 20 minutes, 4.78 seconds.

Conditions for the meet were not the greatest at Bolingbrook's home course of DuPage River Park in Naperville. The rain that occurred before the race began made the course slippery and very muddy. This played a part in race strategy and it was another thing for the runners to be aware of.

"It was important to be in the front in the beginning of the race because if you are not, you have to use a lot of energy to get up to the front," Hernandez said. "I think I did really good, for a real muddy course. It was tough though because I got splashed from the beginning."

One the boys side, the Raiders (190) took seventh place in the regional. Plainfield North was able grab the last position with 138 points. However, the boys will be represented at the sectional as seniors Jesus Hernandez (17:10.77) and Ricardo Rodriguez (17:16.11) both qualified individually. Hernandez was the best Raiders' runner at 26th place.

"When I looked at the 20 regionals and saw who was in what regional, I rated this regional number four as far as the hardest," Raiders coach Art Pahl said. "I was expecting slower times than what we got and I'm really impressed with Ricardo's and Jesus' times in this slop of a course. I knew both of them were capable of making it to the sectional and they really focused on it all week. They were really mentally prepared and now they move on."

All five of the Bolingbrook Cross Country runners will run Saturday at Dellwood Park in the Lockport Sectional race.

Girls race starts at 10:45 a.m. followed by the boys at 11:45 a.m.

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