Davis Captures CSL Cross Country Crown

Evanston seniors Stella Davis and Sam Froum showed Saturday that they’re ready to end their cross country careers on a high note.

Davis earned the first individual title for the girls program since 2017 and Froum scored a solid third place finish in the boys race at the Central Suburban League South division meet held Saturday at Deerfield.

Both seniors are returning state qualifiers and will start on that path again next Saturday at the Glenbrook South regional. The girls race starts at 10 a.m. and the boys will compete at 11 a.m.

At Deerfield, Davis emerged as the winner in one of the closest girls races in the conference’s history. Her winning time of 17 minutes, 20.58 seconds was just six-hundredths of a second faster than runnerup Sofia Arcuri of Maine South (17:20.64) and Davis also had to fight off challenges from the next two finishers, Josie Cahill of New Trier (17:25.92) and Kaitlyn Burns of Glenbrook South (17:39.22).

Davis joins Enyaeva Michelin (2017) and Laura Schmid (1997) on the short list of ETHS runners who have captured conference titles.

“It was a really fun race, because all three of us were together for almost the entire race,” said Davis, whose winning time on the 3 mile course was a PR and who recently committed to compete at the University of Illinois in college. “Most of the race I was thinking OK, who’s going to make a move? We were all right together until about the last 400 meters.

“When I finished I thought the girl from Maine South had won it. I was just happy I ran a PR, even though my goal was to win it. It feels really good because I never thought I’d run like this when I started as a freshman and sophomore.

“My training is coming together and I’m finally running the times I want to run. I really got a confidence boost from this race. I’m finally running consistent paces in my workouts and in my races and my splits are more even. I think I’ve matured as a runner now to the point where I can stay with the pace longer.”

“It was a really great race, a perfect way for the conference championship to go down because it showcased the talent of the best girls in our conference,” said ETHS head coach Beth Arey. “The top four girls were just plugging along until Stella took off.

“I was standing right at the finish when the two of them (Davis and Arcuri) came straight at me. I saw a little something extra from Stella, a little lean, so I thought she won. I haven’t seen a race like that before. To win a conference championship is really a shining moment for her. We’ve worked on her second mile a lot in training. I know she hasn’t felt she was running fast enough before Saturday --- to meet her goal of being All-State this year --- but she was ready to run fast Saturday. I know she really believes in her training.”

Davis’ individual triumph couldn’t life the Wildkit girls any higher than fourth in the final team standings. Glenbrook North claimed the title with 52 points, followed in order by New Trier (58), Maine South (63), ETHS (102), Deerfield (121) and Glenbrook South (122).

Junior Rory Malia placed 7th in 18:18.36, another PR, and Evanston also counted Sophia Hinton (26th in 19:44.19), Shaili Peters (32nd in 20:12.68) and Fiona Vosper (36th in 20:27.35).

Froum was actually fourth overall in the format that combines the runners from both North and South divisions in the same race, then separates them to determine the outcomes on both sides. He churned out a time of 15:05.46 in a race where the top 3 finishers all broke 15 minutes.

Evanston scored a runnerup finish in the team standings with 65 points, trailing only New Trier (25).

Evanston’s next three finishers behind Froum all placed in the top 15 in the South division. Emir Arber Bombaci ran 8th in 15:25.49, ahead of teammates Emmitt Wilson (13th in 15:35.12), Patrick Tu (14th in 15:36.22), and Eli Coustan (27th in 16:15.63).