Davis Keeps Her Cool On Way To PR

BLOOMINGTON --- Boxed in for the first couple of laps of the Class 3A 1600-meter run here Saturday at the Prep Top Times Invitational, Stella Davis refused to push the panic button.

The Evanston junior kept her cool and was rewarded with a personal best time of 4 minutes, 59.62 seconds on her way to a 4th place finish at the prestigious event regarded as the unofficial indoor state championships held at Illinois Wesleyan University.

Davis moved up one place from her effort at the same meet a year ago, but what a difference that year makes.

As a sophomore last March, Davis was still in the process of figuring out which distance race could be her best event. And she hadn’t yet really grown into a strategy where she’ll take the lead right from the opening gun, like she does now.

Davis wasn’t able to do that Saturday --- no one was going to catch the wire-to-wire winner, Saint Ignatius sophomore Annika Swan --- but by the 5th lap of the 8-lap test she had charged back into second place. She couldn’t quite hold on to the runnerup slot as Prospect runners Veronica Znajda and Meg Peterson both passed her in the final 30 meters.

All four runners were clocked under 5 minutes, with Swan the winner in 4:56.25. Davis was right at 5 minutes flat while finishing 5th at the meet last year, but never could break through that barrier outdoors or indoors until Saturday.

“It’s great any time I can get a PR (personal record) like that,” grinned the ETHS junior. “And honestly, I’m happy with where I finished, too. I felt boxed in on those first 3 laps --- and I even got spiked by someone, although I didn’t know it until after the race --- but I feel like I’m a lot more calm this season (in races). I’ve been here before and I kinda know the ropes now. But I could hear Coach (Gideon) Yitref yelling at me to keep calm, and then I was able to get around two girls who were in front of me after that.

“I wasn’t happy with the 800 I ran last week (at Carthage College in Wisconsin) and I worked really hard this week in practice so I could run my best race today. I was getting a little worried that I hadn’t PR’d this year, because I had been running faster than that in my training. So it’s great to get that PR. And knowing I have a kick that can beat some of these other girls really helps, too.

“Now I’m hoping I can carry that momentum over into outdoors. I feel like I’m at a really good point right now.”

Yitref agreed.

“I’ve noticed that Stella can get a little frantic when there are a lot of people around her (in the early stages of a race),” said the ETHS distance coach. “So I’ve been telling her all week she had to remain calm. She did, and she made a beautiful move to get into 2nd place.

“We also worked all week on her arm frequency (number of times per minute a runner pumps their arms during a race) because that’s a way to prevent over-striding. She’s worked hard on that and it’s something you can’t change overnight. She’s noticing a difference in her running form now and she held it together tonight.

“I was really impressed with the way she ran. All I wanted was a season best, but she put it all together in this race. She was very competitive on a big stage.”

Like Davis, the members of Evanston’s boys squad had to earn top 12 statewide times among Class 3A hopefuls per event to earn the right to compete at Saturday’s invitational. The Wildkits qualified 3 individuals --- Oliver Hassard in the high jump, Jack Kleinschmit in the 800, Justin Johnson in the 200 --- and 2 relay teams, and registered the most invites to the meet in at least a decade from ETHS.

But the Kits weren’t able to rise to the occasion. Hassard placed 9th in the high jump at 1.90 meters, Johnson ran 18th in the 200 in 23.43, and Kleinschmit had already planned a spring break trip and didn’t participate in the 800.

Both Evanston relay teams finished 8th overall. The Wildkit foursome of Johnson, Hassard, Sebastian Carmichael and Jordan Harvey was clocked in 1:33.54 --- Belleville West won in 1:30.59 --- in the 800, and the quartet of Hassard, Harvey, Jayden Gumbs and Dallas Amos was timed in 3:33.63 in a 1600 event ruled by Plainfield North in 3:24.78.

Veteran head coach Don Michelin noted that all of Evanston’s runners, including a freshman (Johnson) and a sophomore (Harvey), were making their first appearances at the invite.

“We got a good eye-opener today,” Michelin said. “We needed to get the experience like this, because so many other times similar to this we’ve had this experience and than had a different (better) experience outdoors.

“I’m glad we had a chance to race at a high level like this. It was a win-win situation for us. You have to get this kind of experience to see just how (fast) the rest of the state is.”