ETHS Girls Put Pieces In Place For Postseason Run

The Evanston girls track team has already achieved Illinois High School Association state qualifying standards in a half dozen events, a significant achievement for a roster that only features a few impactful seniors and mostly talented underclassmen.

But veteran head coach Fenton Gunter is too busy trying to tap into the potential of his squad to celebrate what’s happened so far this spring.

And after competing Saturday in the 92nd annual Palatine Relays, the postseason finishing kick is what interests Gunter and the Wildkits the most.

Victories in both the 800-meter and 1600-meter relays, as well as a second place finish in the 400 relay, sparked the Wildkits to an overall fifth place team finish with 59 points. The meet format combines the times and/or distances by every competitor per school to determine points and ETHS didn’t enter a full squad in most of the events in the final tuneup for the postseason.

That relay success didn’t exactly clear up some uncertainty when it comes those races, either. And with the Central Suburban League South division meet looming Thursday at Glenbrook North, Gunter knows he has some decisions to make that will translate to postseason success.

On Saturday, the winning 800 squad consisted of Hunter Vandergriff, Brie Noel, Francesca Decastro and Bailey Sterling, as they posted a winning time of 1:43.56. They beat out York, clocked in 1:44.24.

And the 1600 didn’t feature what will likely be Evanston’s “A” lineup. The foursome of Decastro, Brie, Nyel Rollins and Ingrid Sylvester was put together for the first time and scored a solid time of 4:02.29.

Both Sterling and Rollins saw relay action after being sidelined for much of the outdoor season with injuries (knee, shin splints) and Gunter used Saturday’s meet as a chance to see what the two runners have in them after taking a conservative approach since the indoor season ended.

The emergence of freshman Noel as one of the state’s top quarter-milers means Gunter will likely go against his philosophy of not putting too much of a postseason burden on a rookie runner. She’s ticketed to run the open 400 in the weeks ahead (conference, sectional, State) along with probably the 400 and 1600 relays.

The pieces of the puzzle are there for Gunter to put together, though.

“It will be a hot (fast) sectional when we get there, and it’s a work in progress for us because we’re really, really young,” Gunter said. “We know what their potential is and what can happen if it clicks for us on a certain (qualifying) day. It’s there --- but they still all have a lot to learn about this sport.

“We like where we are. Since last year we’ve seen such growth and development out of all of them. But it’s not going to happen overnight. They’re learning how to be competitive, and it takes time and it takes patience.”

On Saturday, Gunter switched the order for his first two runners in the 4 x 100 with Sterling taking the leadoff slot and Vandergriff running second. The pair combined with Decastro and Noel to place second in 49.61, behind York’s 49.17 effort. “It still feels like we’re one girl short there, but that relay will probably stay the same,” he said. “We ran a 48 at Buffalo Grove (the outdoor opener a month ago) but for whatever reason, we’ve been off there along the way since then. We’re still trying to run that (state) qualifying time (48.92).

“We do know we’re not going to use Brie in the 4 x 200. We put Bailey in there today just to help her get back in shape and we’ll run what we can run there. We’re not where we could be in that race, but we can’t put Brie in there because we don’t want to take her out of the open 400. It would be a plus for us to qualify in that race and someone else will have to step up.”

Vandergriff, a rising junior, showed she’s coming on strong down the stretch with runner-up finishes individually in both the open 100 (12.43) and 200 (25.30) dashes. Senior Stella Davis placed second in the 3200, in 11:14.72, and Sylvester contributed a third in the 100 hurdles in 15.93.

In the field events, Evanston earned a rare “win” in the shot put when the combined efforts of Lejla Maljevic, Ebony Turner and KyNia Hunt were added together under the relay format.

Maljevic has the best toss of 12.51 meters, with Turner (10.10) and Hunt (9.92) ranking 3-4 in the field. It was a PR (personal record) for Maljevic, who also scored a PR in the long jump (5.30) but was denied the title there when Hersey sophomore Emilia Rogowski soared 5.55 on her final jump of the day.

Maljevic came through under pressure after fouling on her first three long jump attempts. But what excited the ETHS junior was that all three of those (non-counting) jumps were out near 18 feet. Evanston’s existing school record is 18 feet, 11.5 inches set by Parker English in 2013.

“I just have to tell myself now to get my toe on that (takeoff) board,” she said.