Second chance saves Sciarini
Lincoln-Way East senior hurdler qualifies for state after getting do-over
Lincoln-Way East senior Katie Sciarini attended prom Tuesday night. She said she went to bed at a decent time.
“I was prepared,” she said. “I wasn’t tired at all.”
What Sciarini couldn’t have anticipated, however, was having to do an extra run in the 300-meter hurdles Wednesday at the Class 3A Minooka Sectional.
Sciarini, who entered with the sixth-best time in the state at 46.12 seconds, according to Athletic.net, took a spill during her heat after competitors from another lane collided and fell into her lane.
She got up and finished with a 47.66, which would have missed the qualifying standard for the state meet.
After Lincoln-Way East’s coaches pleaded a case for interference, she was on the track by herself 20 minutes later. She came up with a 45.727, which was a fraction behind teammate Sophia Barnard’s 45.713.
Following the solo run, Sciarini was mobbed by her teammates. And the Griffins, who trailed 82-68 before the 300 hurdles, were fired up. They won the sectional title with 126 points, with defending state champion H-F finishing with 117.
“I don’t know another kid in Illinois who could have done what we witnessed here,” Lincoln-Way East coach Brian Evans said of Sciarini. “It’s totally different to be out there by yourself. She did the unbelievable.
“You hope the kid can run 45 seconds fresh one time, and to have
to do that back-to-back is amazing. That lit a fire under the team.”
Sciarini qualified in 2019 for state in both hurdle events, finishing sixth in the 300 hurdles.
She did not qualify for the 100 hurdles Wednesday, and after the fall in the 300, she thought a return trip to Charleston on June 12 had disappeared.
But during the do-over in the 300 hurdles, she heard the crowd cheering for her.
“Oh, my God, it was so weird,” she said. “Usually when I run races, I have tunnel vision. I can’t tell what’s going on outside of me. But it was still weird because no one was next to you trying to push you.”
Sectional champs for the Griffins were Barnard, Mariam Azeez and Ali Van Dyke. Azeez went 12.03 in the 100, a personal-best 24.67 in the 200 and 19-0 in the long jump. Van Dyke went 10-11.5 in the pole vault.
Sectional champs for H-F were Caroline Schoen, Ana-Liese Torian, Alexandria Edison, Daija Brown, and Imani Warner, Angela Alozie, Edison and Torian in the 400 relay.
Schoen ran a personal-best 5:06.01 in the 1,600 and a 11:05.11 in the 3,200. Torian went a personal-best 13.90 in the 100 hurdles. Edison ran a 57.29 in the 400, while Brown had a 2:19.77 in the 800 and the 400 relay finished in 1:45.99.
Rich Township’s 800 relay of Kourtlyn Cannon, Kimora Fleet, Allison Valladay and Arianna Walker won in 1:43.37 and Alyssa Coleman won the high jump in 5-01. Thornwood’s Christine Nosike won the discus in 138-11 and the shot put in 40-3.50, while Bloom’s Bria Armstrong won the triple jump in 38-9.75.
For East, Van Dyke, Kailey Bell and freshman Jaiden Knoop were in the top nine in the state in the pole vault. Van Dyke and Bell, who took third in the sectional, hope to make some noise at state.
Van Dyke, a Colorado at Colorado Springs recruit, has come a long way since she first tried vaulting in eighth grade at Summit Hill.
“I saw a girl vaulting and I said, ‘That looks awesome, I want to try it,’ ” she said. “I think the first time I tried it, I was quite atrocious.”