Phillips wins to lead Du Quoin to its third straight cross country title
With Olivia Phillips, Lauren Heape and Jacqueline Crain leading the way the Du Quoin girls cross country team easily out-distanced the competition in the SIRR Mississippi Division on its home course at the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds to win its third straight title last Thursday.
Du Quoin beat Pinckneyville by 22 points (21-43) with Nashville third (89), Anna-Jonesboro fourth (103) and Carterville fifth (109). Sparta was in quarantine, so wasn't able to participate.
"I remember my freshman year we weren't really for sure we'd won until (coach) told us we had won conference (for the first time since joining the conference in 1993) and now it's so exciting I'm able to be a part of conference championship wins in all three of my high school seasons," Phillips said. "It's awesome."
Phillips continued her breakout season with her team record seventh win in a row out after starting the season with a second place finish in the SIRR Mississippi Preview meet also held on her home course to earn her first conference title and her third straight all-conference with a time of 19:16.2 to lower her season best time on her home course by 43.6 seconds.
"I'm honestly speechless - I'm just so humble I was able to get the record," Phillips said. "The record really didn't come to my mind until the sixth win last week when I thought 'I really do have a shot at this' and today I was a little nervous."
The previous record of six straight was held by three-time conference champion Gabby Alongi set in 2018, which Phillips tied at West Frankfort.
"Olivia continues to gain confidence as the season goes on - seven wins in a row will do that for anybody - but, I think she's more excited to finally win a conference championship," said Du Quoin coach Eric Kirkpatrick. "With Gabby around that was hard to do when you knew getting off the bus the best you could do was second place. To be honest with you at the end of last year she was beating Gabby, so it was not a complete surprise that she won it. She was getting pretty strong at the end of the year beating her at both the state meet and the sectional meet. She is continuing where she left off last year."
The junior Heape is playing the same role Phillips played the last two seasons coming in second to Phillips for the fifth time out of eight meets 35.1 seconds (19:51.3) to also finish second for the second straight year at the conference championships.
"Lauren gets stronger and stronger because she's a workout warrior and doesn't like to lose - when the gun goes off she is looking to win," Kirkpatrick said. "She's a five-sport athlete and I think she'll probably end up all-conference and probably all-south in all five."
The senior Crain also earned her third straight all-conference honor finishing third (19:59.7) after finishing seventh as a junior, 10th as a sophomore and out of all-conference consideration in 18th place as a freshman.
"Third was Jacqueline's goal," Kirkpatrick said. "She's our senior and has a couple of those red, white and blue medals and said this year she wanted one that was a color. She was getting tired of the four through 10 medals. I'm really, really proud of her. She ran a really smart race. Pinckneyville had a pretty big lead on us with about three quarters of a mile to go, but our top three were real patient and ran their race and it worked out for us."
After Pinckneyville junior Ashlee Hirsch snagged fourth place junior Alexis George earned her first all-conference medal by finishing fifth (20.21.1).
"Alexis had some health issues her sophomore year and made up her mind she was going to get back in shape," Kirkpatrick said. "Really after the track season in the spring were we got cut short she hadn't run a single day until practice started. She just keeps grinding and is motivated by the rest of the team."
Freshmen Kallie Oestreicher and Lainey Miller battled it out for the final all-conference spot with Oestreicher nipping Miller at the finishing line by 0.7 seconds to claim 10th place with a time of 20.44.9.
"Both the freshmen ran a great race," Kirkpatrick said. "We were going back-and-forth whether to run Lainey Miller varsity and she was in ninth with 400-meters to go. I thought she would end up all-conference, but she let a teammate and one other get her at the end."
To show how deep the 2020 Lady Indians cross country team is was the fact that two-time all-conference runner junior Grace Alongi was seventh member of the team finishing in 16th place (21:40.5).
Joining Hirsch on the all-conference team were teammates Sofia Castellano (6th-20:36.3) and Taylor Kurtz (8th-20:40.2), Nashville's Olivia Verges (7th-20:37.4) and Anna-Jonesboro's Kaylee Stover (9th-20:41.4).
The Lady Indians will participate in the four-team Nashville Invitational Monday that was moved to the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds course because of the COVID-19 crisis before starting the post-season at the Class 1A Marissa Regionals Saturday starting at 9 a.m.