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11/28/98 at U of Wisconsin-Parkside, Kenosha WI

1998 Foot Locker Championship

Midwest - by Don Kopriva

From: [email protected] on behalf of [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 1998 8:08 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: t-and-f: Midwest FootLocker Feature, by Don Kopriva

Jorge Torres repeated as boys’ champ and newcomer Lyndsi Gay won the girls’ title at the FootLocker Cross Country championships Midwest Regional on a dry course in 60-degree plus temperatures. 

Torres, a senior from Wheeling, Ill., was clocked in a Midwest Regional record 15:04.00, over the 5,000-meter course at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, five seconds better than Rockford, MI teammates Jason Hartmann, a senior who was second in 15:09.13, and Dathan Ritzenhein, a sophomore who was third in 15:11.

Gay, a senior from Reynoldsburg, Ohio, who just started running cross country this fall, was timed in 17:44.16 for the same course, defeating another Ohioan, Marina Kruppa of Dublin, who finished in 17:52.87.

Torres, who became the first Illinois prep runner to win three state cross country titles earlier this month, advances to the FootLocker National Championships for the fourth straight year and will be the first runner to compete in the national race four times. Torres was second in the national finals last year after taking fifth in 1996 and 13th in 1995 as a freshman.

The top eight finishers in each of the four regional boys’ and girls’ races will run in the Foot Locker National Finals in Orlando, FLA on December 12.

Rounding out the top five in the boys’ race were Dana Carne, a senior from Omaha, Nebr., fourth in 15:12, and Brian Godsey, a senior from West Chester, Ohio, fifth in 15:14.  The final qualifiers from the nationals were Joe Barnes, a senior from Dayton, Ohio, sixth in 15:15;, Jake Flynn, a junior from Benzonia, MI, seventh in 15:16; and, in a tie for eighth place, Edwardo Torres, a senior from Wheeling, ILL., and Jorge’s twin brother and Neil Hanson, a senior from Granada, Minn. Both were timed in 15:16.43 and judges could not separate them on a photo so both will run in the nationals. The alternate and 10th place finisher was Jared Scott, a junior from Monument, CO in 15:34.

Qualifying behind Gay and Kruppa in the girls division were defending regional champion Christin Wurth, a senior from Bloomington, Ill., who was third in 17:58; Rebecca Mitchell, a junior from Geneva, ILL., fourth in 18:00, Amy Mortimer, a senior from Manhattan, KS, fifth in 18:02, Kathernine Hartmann, a junior from Woodstock, Ill., sixth in 18:04, Nicole Williams, a senior in Topeka, Iowa, seventh in 18:05, and Cecilia Williams, a senior from Elmhurst, Ill.,eighth place in 18:05.  Alternates for the national meet, were Susan Barth, a senior from Bluffton, Ind., ninth in 18:12; and Micelle Dela Vina, a sophomore from Valparaiso, Ind., 19th in 18:22.