Winds of change blow for Minooka

The wind and rain that ended the Southwest Prairie Conference girls track and field meet at Oswego East High School might have been saying something.

The winds of change blew threw the meet and the rain washed away 20 years of failure for Minooka High School.

The Indians won the first and last races of the night and featured plenty of career performances in between to win their first conference championship in two decades.

Minooka scored 108 points to outdistance second-place Oswego East’s 88 and defending champion Plainfield North’s 86.

“We have a deep team and we showed that today,” Minooka coach Kevin Gummerson said. “We had a lot of kids step up. We’ve been building each week and we knew we were going to give all the teams here a run for their money.”

The 4 x 800-meter relay team of Haley McNamara, Laura Simon, Haley Renison and Kiley Saunders started the meet with a first-place effort in 9 minutes 56.1 seconds.

Lauren Jonen was seeded fifth in the triple jump, but cleared her seeded distance by nearly a foot, taking first with a jump of 32 feet 11 inches. Autumn Bevell won the shot put (34-6-1/2).

“We had a lot of surprises and a lot of kids outperformed their seeds,” Gummerson said.

During the second to last race of the evening, the junior varsity 4 x 400 relay, wind and rain hammered the track and participants. It stayed that way until just after the completion of the meet.

“We started the meet off with a win and closed the meet with a win in rough conditions,” Gummerson said.

In a driving rain, Minooka’s McNamara, Angelica Estrada, Saunders and Jonen combined to win the 4x 400 relay (4:06.9).

“To put it all together tonight is a great feeling,” Gummerson said. “The last time we won a conference track title was in 1991. To accomplish what they did tonight was a great feeling for these girls because they’ve worked hard for it.”

Badminton

Joliet West’s badminton team went 2-4 in SouthWest Suburban Conference duals and did not feature a state qualifier after competing in the Neuqua Valley sectional last week in Naperville.

Softball

Joliet is mired in a seven-game losing streak. The Steelmen are 9-18 overall and 0-8 in the SouthWest Suburban Conference.

In a 9-6 league loss to Lincoln-Way East Monday, the game was tied 6-6 heading into the seventh inning. Tresa Fahrner went 3-for-4 with two doubles and a run scored and Stephanie Stanton had two hits and scored three times. Daviona Ervins knocked in a pair of runs while Katie Bourg had a double and an RBI.

Minooka kept its first-place standing in the Southwest Prairie Conference by pounding out 17 hits during a cancer benefit game Tuesday in Plainfield. The Indians scored in all but the first two innings to run their records to 21-8 overall and 10-1 in the SPC.

Baseball

With Minooka High School leading 7-2 and two outs in the top of the sixth inning, Tuesday it looked like Plainfield North’s Southwest Prairie Conference title clincher would have to wait at least a day.

The Tigers, however, scored five runs to tie and seven more in the top of the seventh inning of a 14-7 victory that gave Plainfield North its third straight conference championship.

Both teams made plenty of mistakes during the first five frames and combined for eight errors.

Dakota Brown went 3-for-4 with a double and an RBI and Tyler Thorsen ended up with two hits and two RBI for Minooka (15-11, 10-6).

Boys volleyball

Minooka kept its slim Southwest Prairie Conference title hopes alive by beating Oswego Tuesday in Minooka. The Indians are 23-4-1 overall and 9-2 in the SPC, two games back of leader Plainfield North with three games to play in the league season.

Girls soccer

Becca Sutton’s goal two minutes into overtime Friday gave Minooka a 5-4 overtime win over Plainfield South on Friday in a game that was suspended Thursday evening because of lightning. Minooka is 8-8, 4-2 in the SPC.