October 9, 2001
BY TINA AKOURIS STAFF REPORTER
Downers Grove North senior Ed Borjon went into the season as the state's top returning runner--he was sixth at the state meet last year--and is just now starting to feel good about the progress he has made. It showed at the West Aurora Stampede on Saturday when Borjon won the boys race for the second straight year.
''I feel a lot better than at the start of the season,'' Borjon said. "Honestly, I felt real tight and now I'm relaxing more. Coach [Will] Kupisch has us going through rigid workouts, and you can't be negative or you'll get negative results.''
Borjon is working more on taking the lead during a race and trying to run on his own more instead of staying with a pack. That may have been his downfall at the Crete-Monee Pow-Wow, where he finished fourth in the championship flight.
Borjon said his teammates are helping to push him through the last quarter-miles during practice because those are the most difficult.
''At state I won't have [my teammates] up there with me,'' Borjon said. ''I have to learn how to push myself.''
POWERFUL PRAIRIE: The Suburban Prairie Conference boasts several top-five teams and is considered one of the better cross-country conferences in the area.
Geneva, Fenton and Glenbard South will fight for the top three spots. Geneva boasts seniors Dan Huling and Andrew McQuillan. Fenton has seniors Carlos Mendoza, Andy Sbertoli and junior Jose Muneton. Glenbard South boasts a younger lineup of sophomores John Mulrow, Kyle Nugent and Eric MacTaggart and seniors Kevin Kuhlman, Roger Hsiell and Micah VanDenend.
Geneva will be one of those teams Glenbard South will face again next week when they host a regional meet.
''I don't care about winning the regional because I want to get to the next step,'' Glenbard South coach Andy Preuss said. ''We'd rather have a trophy from the state meet.''
YOUNG WILDCATS: Wheeling is trying to qualify for the state meet with a much younger team than the squad the Wildcats fielded last year.
Coach Tom Polak's top runner is junior Mike Burke. In the postseason, Polak also will lean on his other top runner, junior Gerardo Herrera, who missed about a week with tendinitis in his Achilles. He has only two seniors on the team, Eric Myszka and Scott Schaeffer.
''That's part of the reason why we haven't been finishing as high [as people expect],'' Polak said of his young team. ''But I'll set goals for each individual [for the Mid-Suburban meet] and if they maintain those goals, the team goals will take care of themselves.''
Polak will start to taper the workouts and not have the runners do as much mileage, instead opting for more speed-related workouts in the weeks before the state meet.