Teams, runners tune up for postseason

If you play fantasy football in the late part of the NFL season, you quickly notice how quirky the final few weeks are. Some players are primed for playoff action and resting their bodies for the rigors of the postseason, while others are still picking up points where their team needs them.

Welcome to the final week of the regular season in cross country.

While some were spending their off day in warmups and being assistant coaches, others put up big-time numbers at the Andrews Osborne Academy Invitational on Oct. 10.

Two area runners turned in individual wins as North j unior Sydnie Schwenk (19:28.75) took the top spot in the Division I girls race. Wickliffe sophomore Brent LeBlanc (16:12.00) topped the Division II-III boys race en route to a Wickliffe team win.

Schwenk had found success at Andrews in the past two years, repeating as the D-I winner in 2015, and using the momentum of her day to head into the postseason.

“It’s flat, so it’s an easy course to run, but I feel like just because I had a good run during my freshman year, I had a good feeling about the course,” she said. “So, I was able to kind of transfer it from last year and just run it.”

“I feel good, I feel like I beat my time that I wanted to, so I can only improve from here. Hopefully that will lead to district, regional and I hope state this year.”

In the other two races, it was an area standout and an emerging name — neé sleeper — who turned in runner-up finishes. Track and field state champ and first-year cross runner Brittany Aveni of Geneva continued her impressive debut season with a personal record 19:04.83, while South junior Matt Richmond added to a growing resume with a 16:47.19.

Aveni said a runner-up spot didn’t bother her as she simply tries to get her times down and mental game up.

“Especially focusing on time right now, trying to get a good time and figure out how to exactly run this before district and regional, so just fig- uring that out,” she said. “With (Grand Valley’s Grace Steimle) in the front, the perfect rabbit to chase and try to keep up with and pace myself. So, it’s exciting, and we’ve definitely had some competition in our last few meets. The team has been doing really good, a bunch of PRs today, so just trying to pull together and do good at district.”

As for Richmond, his personal-record time is his fifth in six races, and the junior feels he has no reason to believe the improvements will stop.

“I’m hoping for at least 16:30s, and going into next year, I want to get below 16,” Richmond said. “I want to qualify for state, so that’s my motivation. I just have to work on my mental and just know that I can do it, I just need to work harder and harder.

“My coach pushes us really hard every week, and especially during this past off week that we had, he made us go really hard in workouts. He kept on telling us to run faster and faster, and it just shows on the course.”

The Lake Catholic and Hawken girls teams joined South’s boys as second place teams in their respective divisions.

Geneva’s Tim Bowling (16:21.49) finished second behind LeBlanc.

Cross countr y