John Raffel
Sports Scene
Gene Lebron’s Ithaca girls cross country program is in a transitional period.
The Yellowjackets won the Division 3 state title in 2014, but Traverse City St. Francis has reigned supreme the last several seasons.
Without Courtney Allen, the Yellowjackets wound up in 15th as a team and had no all-state athlete. In the team state standings, Amelia Freestone placed 63rd (21:12.7); Kara Kindel, 65th (21;18.6); Samantha Vermeesh, 71st (21:22.8); Faith Bartnik, 107th (21:56.6); Courtney Brown, 111th (22:07.8); and Adrianna Santana, 133rd (22:24.3). Vermeesch, Batnik and Brown are freshmen and the other three are seniors.
During the season, Allen stayed competitive with several first place finishes, including a title at the Oiler Invitational in 19:07.8. She was fifth at the regional meet (19:50.0), but she would never beat her personal record from her freshman season of 18:59.2 at the Don Baese Carson City-Crystal Invitational. Freestone was 10th at the regionals with a seasonal best of 21:12.7. Her personal record came last season with a 19:51.3 in the regionals.
Kindell set her personal record at the regionals in 21:11.8.
“It was an interesting year for us,” Lebron said. “We had some fantastic runners from last year. Three are running in college and one could have chosen not to and ended up going to Northwestern. So we came into this year with a lot of question marks.
“We had a lot of young girls and we weren’t sure how they would handle the training load at the high school level. But they adapted really quickly and we ended up being ranked in the top 10 all year for the most part. At the state meet, we ran four seniors and three freshmen. So really, it’s a changing of the guard after this year. There’s no more girls on our team, who ran on that state championship team.”
Ithaca went into the state meet ranked 12th.
“Unfortunately, our No. 1 runner, Courtney Allen, caught a really bad cramp and it’s so awful when that happens,” Lebron said. “So she had to drop out. Without our No. 1 runner, we still finished sixth, which I was pleased with considering the circumstances. Courtney has been a leader for us. It was sad for her to end her career that way. But she’s a championship winner, and she’s already getting ready for track.”
Freestone was also a four-year state meet runner for Ithaca.
“Amelia and Courtney have run four years at state meet, which is awesome,” Lebron said. “We’ve had a few other kids do it. It’s not very often you’re at the state meet four years. In fact, in Division 3, there were only 11 girls out of the 200 that ran who had competed at all four state meets.”
Ithaca won its league title and was second in the regionals.