SATURDAY SENTINEL: Catching up with cross country, again

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For three straight years now, I’ve had the chance to follow the Morris cross country team as it took its first foray into the postseason. Guess that turns out to be good from me that I’ve been present for the Redskins’ regional action since I’ve seen history in the making.

Actually, history in the ongoing is probably more the appropriate way to describe it.

Two years ago, the meet was held in Princeton and each of the last two years it was in Sandwich. In that span, the Morris girls have advanced out of regional action each and every time. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, Morris had never even had one team advance to a sectional, let alone three times in succession.

“It’s our third year in a row advancing as a team,” Morris coach Joe Blumberg said. “Each year has been special, but with the adversity we’ve faced this year, combined with the improved competition, and the way that we fought back in today’s race ... I couldn’t be more proud of our girls.”

It was made even more exciting due to the fact that Morris was on the bubble to be qualifying at all. On top of that, the hopes seemed to be in jeopardy with a mile to go.

“With a mile to go in the race, I’m not sure we were in a position to advance to the sectional,” Blumberg said. “Mallory, Katie (Thayer), Anna (Burbank) and Teesha ran a very gutty, hard third mile. Without that effort, I don’t think we are running as a team next weekend.”

According to Morris senior captain Mallory Runion — someone who has run on the team all three seasons — this year’s effort was the best of the three successes.

“It’s especially gratifying today because we didn’t know what to expect. We knew it was going to be close, so it’s exciting to finish fourth,” Runion said. “We were praying to be fifth and we did better than we hoped for.”

The girls have really been the major success story of the program, but the boys have gotten closer. In each year, the Redskins have advanced individuals but fell short of making the cut as a team. This year it was by an agonizing 19 points that the team failed. It’s too bad, too, especially since Morris had four individual advancers to the East Peoria Sectional.

“We have a lot of guys coming back next year and I think that our experience is going to help,” junior sectional qualifier Jordan Walker told me Saturday. “I think coach Blumberg is great. We have a great program here and he knows a lot about cross country running.”

Maybe next year the boys can make history, too.

About the only other event I’ve covered since we last met for the Sentinel is the Morris clinching football game at home against Dixon. The 47-8 win by Morris marked the first time the team won by a game by the running clock since last year’s 41-7 win against Oswego East.

I actually double covered the game that night. The Dixon Telegraph is one of our sister papers and I also filed for them. Sent them a completely different one than ran in our paper. In it, I mentioned a moment when senior lineman David Goad broke into the interview I was having with coach Tony Agrimonti to give him a hug and to ... dare I say ... cry on his shoulder.

It was a touching moment for a kid who was sad to see the season come to an end, even though they finished 2-7.

I thought Agrimonti summed things up nicely.

“Nobody goes into coaching thinking only of the wins and losses,” he told me after the moment. “If that’s what you go in for, they you’re only being half of what you can be.”

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