By Mike Hammersley
Copy Editor
There is only one word to describe the girls’ cross country team this year: dominant.
At the regional meet today at Busse Woods, freshman phenom Brooke Wolfe slipped, the conditions were terrible and the Knights didn’t even run their top two finishers in state last year, seniors Annette White and Emily Salzman.
Despite all this, Wolfe still finished second in the meet and the Knights won by 10 points over runner-up Schaumburg.
The team held back because, according to head coach Dave Wurster, “Our plan today was to qualify, which we knew was going to be easy.” Prospect was already the conference champion, and they had beaten five of the teams at the regional meet during the conference meet. Although they won the meet, Wurster believes other teams may have held up a bit as well, since the top five teams move on to sectionals.
“All the teams kind of held back, and we were the best of the holding-back teams,” Wurster said.
Wurster didn’t want to risk any injuries, especially to White, who has a minor case of shin splints; she will run in the sectional meet next week. Because they weren’t going all out, Wurster had to clear the air with his team.
“We had a race plan for two miles, and in the last mile, I told them, ‘However you feel, that’s what you’re going to do,'” Wurster said. “If you want to ease up and go in because it was a hard race than go ahead; if you want to just race because you like to race then go ahead, because we will qualify either way.”
The race was a bit “weird,” according to Wurster, because the team is used to going all out.
“It’s like trying to get a C on a test that you know you could do better than a C on,” Wurster said. “They like to race and they’re used to racing.”
Looks like the Knights got an A anyways.