By Michael Newman

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Glen Ellyn, Ill --- The biggest psychological drawback for a distance runner is to enter the stadium the morning of a meet and see the flag on the pole stiff as a board. That is what happened at Glenbard West Saturday morning. A north crosswind gusting close to 25 mph at times played in the minds of most of the athletes that competed in the Sue Pariseau Invitational.

It did not affect Lindsay Graham (Glenbard West HS, Glen Ellyn). She went on to win the 3200 and 1600 in a convincing manner.

If the conditions were perfect, the field in the 3200 could have put a number of athletes under eleven minutes including Graham. With the wind, the north wind pushed the race south. The first 800 meters of the race was completed in 2:52. That was the same pace that the Frosh / Soph 3200 went by at the same point. On the back stretch of the third lap, Graham had decided that she needed to get out of that pack. Graham passed the 1600 in 5:33. Mary Blankemeir (Oak Park-River Forest HS) and Alexa Haff (Central HS, Hinsdale) were eight seconds back but were not making ground on the Glenbard sophomore. She wanted a PR but the weather prevented that on this day. She ran negative splits (5:33 /5:20) finishing in 10:54.07. The Naperville North duo of Elly DeTurris and Maria McDaniel finished 2-3 nine seconds behind Graham. Haff was fourth (11:06) while Lisa Luczak (Glenbard West HS, Glen Ellyn) and Blankemeier finished 5-6.

“I wanted the race a chance to be mine. I changed the race plan I had in my mind,” Graham said after the 3200. “I was going to break away. I was not going to go in front and break the wind for everyone. That is why I broke away.”

It was the same story in the 1600. Graham was content to let Annie Zaher (Central HS, Hinsdale) take the lead. With 300 to go, Graham unleashed her kick easily moving away from Zaher. Graham’s time was 5:11.39, seven seconds slower than her seasonal best. It was still good enough for a three second win ahead of Zaher.

Barrington won the team title fairly easily with 135 points. The Fillies received individual wins from Anna Cossio in the High Jump (5-2) and Rachel Cheever in the Discus (121-10). They also received two relay wins. Anchor Stephanie Bergren pulled away from Geneva’s Mackenzie Altmayer in the final lap to give her team a two second win ahead of Geneva (9:38.48 – 9:40.71). They finished the day winning the 4 x 400 Meter Relay by more than six seconds ahead of Oak Park-River Forest (4:06.02 – 4:12.62).

Whitney Young finished second paced by a pair of athletes that had double wins. Joelle Ataessien won both hurdle races over a pair of Oak Park hurdlers. Ataessian won the 100 hurdles by almost a half second ahead of Amari Wilkerson (15.78 – 16.24). The Whitney Young sophomore came back later in the day to capture the 300 hurdles. Her win in that race was closer. She held off Chena Overhill to win the race by three tenths of a second (47.83 – 48.11).

Stephanie Okiro was a double winner in the short sprints. She won the 100 (13.06) by almost a quarter of a second ahead of Alexa Laureano (Wheeling HS). The margin was closer when Okiro was only twelve hundredths ahead of Nina Hodges (Barrington HS) in the 200 Meter Dash (26.21 – 26.33).