Nothin’ but a ‘G’ thing for Warriors
Lincoln-Way West’s Arizzi opens up strong, wins preseason SouthWest Suburban Red Meet
Lincoln-Way West sophomore Gianna Arizzi looked back Thursday night and could not believe her eyes.
Arizzi led the way at the preseason Southwest Suburban Red Meet, and her closest pursuer was nowhere in sight.
“Normally, you can hear a lot of coaches and people yelling out for different teams,” Arizzi said. “I didn’t hear any of that. I just heard a lot of people saying, ‘Go West.’ It was a weird feeling.
“Then I realized that no one else was really around me. I was very surprised.”
Arizzi won the race at Lockport by nearly 70 seconds and smashed her previous personal record by more than a minute, finishing in 18 minutes, 9.7 seconds.
Lincoln-Way West coach Matt Bowden was impressed.
“She’s had a phenomenal summer, and you could kind of see she was going to make a leap,” he said. “Even with that, I didn’t expect this. Her best time by over a minute. On a hot day like this, it’s a fantastic way to start the year.”
Arizzi had a strong freshman year, earning all-conference honors with an 18th-place showing before placing seventh at the Andrew Regional.
The early success helped her realize she had a ton of potential in the sport.
“Last year, it was still really new to me,” she said. “I just started in seventh grade and I had never ran track before, either.
“I’ve just been running so much since then, and it’s crazy how much I’ve improved. I fell in love with the sport.”
It was teammate Kady Winans
who inspired Arizzi, a longtime softball player, to try cross country.
“She’s one of my neighbors, and she has been a cross country runner forever,” Arizzi said of Winans. “I always thought it’d be so nice to run with her because I love her, so she kind of got me into it.”
Bradley-Bourbonnais’ Alaina Bahr took second in 19:19, followed by Stagg’s Karolina Rozanski in 19:25.
Lincoln-Way Central won the team title with 30 points as Merrigan Allen, Carly Shipman, Colleen Erdman, Nadia Bowden and Catherine Ihrke finished fourth through eighth, respectively, for the Knights.
Lincoln-Way East junior Kate Guderjan, meanwhile, won the SouthWest Suburban Blue Meet in 18:23.3, ahead of Homewood-Flossmoor’s Caroline Schoen in 18:30.6.
“It was nice because my left knee has been messed up, but it didn’t hurt too bad,” Guderjan said. “It started bothering me just over a week ago.
“My chiropractor said it was just overuse and running on it wouldn’t make it worse. So I’m still running, just not as much.”
After qualifying for state last season, Guderjan put in the time to prepare for another big year.
“I tried harder with summer running,” she said. “Last year, I trained for half-marathon so it was all about distance, but this year I focused more on speed.”
Lockport edged out Lincoln-Way
East 28-54 for the team title as sophomore Kayla Shea paced the Porters with a third place in 18:40.4.
Shea was followed by Elizabeth Bollinger in 19:06.3, Megan Mitchell in 19:10.8, Josephine Bober in 19:21.1 and Monica Skibicki in 19:32.7 as Lockport went 4-5-7-9.
“I’m just so glad that my team is always there for me,” Shea said. “We’re always pushing off each other. For the first half-mile, we were all together. Then me and Monica ran almost a mile together, helping each other have a better race.
“Our whole team, we just help each other out so much and try to help each other become a better person and a runner.”
Steve Millar is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.