Saints almost best of Best
Both of those phenomena occurred Saturday at the first Best Invitational at Leroy Oakes Forest Preserve. Palatine won the aptly named meet by packing five runners into the top 16 and scoring just 47 points. St. Charles was second with 72.
Rakaric (15:06) finished second to Glenbard South sophomore Micah Van Denend (15:03) on the 3.1-mile course. Scott was sixth (15:38) for the Pirates in his best race since the Big Cat Invitational, not coincidentally Palatine's highlight before the meet.
"St. Charles blew us away at our meet," Scott said of the Palatine Invitational. "I didn't run well that day. We wanted to get them back."
St. Charles had three of the top 13 runners to gain the edge on third-place Sandburg (75). The gap between the Saints and fifth-place Glenbard South (85) was just 13 points.
"The guy who was in 20th place at the mile (St. Charles' Mark Landmeier) was at 5 minutes," said St. Charles coach Jeff Leavey, the meet organizer. "There was only 22 seconds between first place and last. That's how good this meet was."
The meet featured five of the Illinois Prep Top Times' top 15.
Van Denend and Rakaric each could be among the top 10 finishers at the state meet. Both surpassed the previous course record.
"It was my fourth race against him, and I've beaten him the last two times, so I knew I could run with him," Van Denend said. "I stayed on his shoulder the whole time. He started to open it up with 400 meters to go. I gave it everything I had the last 200."
Glenbard South had a seventh-place finish from Qasim Rashid (15:39). Shawn Teague was 17th (16:02), Bob Albertson 25th (16:22) and senior Jeremy Quill 35th (16:50) with a strong performance.
The Raiders placed fifth with 85 points despite running without Anthony Asaad, who had the flu.
"Qasim had his best race of the year," Glenbard South coach Andy Preuss said. "He was sixth after 11/2 miles, and this time he went with the leaders. That's huge for us.
"All in all, we knew we were a little bit over our heads without Anthony, but we stepped up and got better."
St. Charles senior Brian Philiben was taking the ACT. The Saints needed a big race from sophomore fill-in Conrad Chase. Like Quill, he went from his team's seventh runner to the fifth.
"Conrad definitely came through," Leavey said. "It didn't matter that we didn't have Brian. We still would have lost with him. I don't like losing, but the other team (Palatine) ran better."
The Saints did speed training Thursday and applied it Saturday.
"It helped to go out fast," St. Charles' Mark Landmeier said. "It scared us a little because we weren't used to it, but I think next time we're going to run stronger because of it."
Landmeier was 22nd (16:17) and Chase 23rd. The tandem provided St. Charles with an advantage over Lincoln-Way and Glenbard South.
A 13th-place finish by George Pfeiffer (15:57) pushed St. Charles past Sandburg.
Senior Dominic Williams finished a strong third (15:25) and Matt Brackmann was 11th (15:49), recalling the 1-2 punch the pair represented last year.
The next challenge for St. Charles is next Saturday's Upstate Eight Conference meet.
"I think by next week," Brackmann said, "we'll be ready for the most important meets."
They proved they belong among the Best.