Girls track and field: Flotte’s 38 points lead Geneva to team title at Kane County Invite

ST. CHARLES – Geneva freshman Alyssa Flotte was on a mission April 25.

Heading into the Kane County Invitational at St. Charles East, Flotte realized that in all three of her individual events, (100-meter dash, 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles) she was seeded second.

Her goal was simple.

Beat the seed.

Her quest started in the 100 hurdles, which she ran in a personal-best time of 16.01 seconds for the win.

A jog back down to the start line, she later got her second win of the night in the 100 dash after crossing the finish line in another personal-best time of 12.46.

After getting a little more of a breather, the freshman phenom got gold for a third time, winning the 300 hurdles in yet another personal-best time of 46.76 seconds.

Her 30 points, plus another eight after anchoring the 4x100 relay to a second-place finish, were the most by a single athlete on the night and helped Geneva to the team title with 107 points.

“It just felt great,” Flotte said. “I’m just glad that I get to keep helping my team out and adding up points.”

Geneva girls track and field coach Peter Raak said a lot of Flotte’s success on the track can be attributed to the hard work she’s put into her events at practice. And after seeing that, it’s real easy to cheer for her.

“She has a wonderful personality and is always humble,” Raak said. “I think when people see someone with that attitude, it inspires them as well. And people like to be around her because she’s so nice and kind, so she gets along with the other girls as well. It’s a good relationship that they have and great track spirit they have together.”

The Vikings also had two wins in the field. Senior Reilly Day took gold in both the long jump (17 feet, 9.5 inches) and triple jump (36-9).

Raak felt the team put together a nice performance across the board.

“We’re progressing nicely as a team,” Raak said. “We’ve got good senior leadership and also have talent across all the events. We also have some elite athletes, but they all really want to do their best for the team, which is nice to see.”

Batavia, which hosted the meet, came up just short with 99 points. The Bulldogs originally were supposed to host the meet Friday afternoon, but after a discussion with the other coaches, Batavia coach Justin Allison decided to move the meet to Thursday night.

“The mindset of coaches is that we want to get in good weather for our kids so they can perform and get better marks and times so we can use them for conference and sectionals,” Allison said.

The Bulldogs got a majority of their points from their relay teams. The team of Izzy Taylor, Elizabeth Wende, Madison Taylor and Mariah Taylor got wins in both the 4x100 relay (48.33, 11th best time in Illinois this season) and 4x200 (1:43.25, ninth best time in Illinois). The 4x400 team won with a time of 4:05.97 and the 4x800 team led off the meet with a win in 9:47.46.

Allison said while the girls’ performance on the track was impressive, the work they did with coach Courtney Ford really showed in the relays.

“We executed on our handoffs very well,” Allison said. “Coach Ford did an amazing job with improving the handoffs in our relays. Those handoffs were choice and everyone was just hitting on all cylinders.”

St. Charles North rounded out the top three with 90 points. The North Stars got only one win. Tosin Oshin won the shot put with a throw of 36 feet, 5 inches. North managed six second-place finishes to give it a shot at the top spot, including two seconds from senior Reagan Sipla in the 800 (2:18.19) and 400 (1:00.80).

Sipla, who’s been on the team for only four weeks according to first-year coach Anthony Enright, has been a great add for the North Stars.

“We knew even in the first practice that she was something special,” Enright said. “And I think that’s in part because we recognized that she was willing to do anything. She’s just a coach’s dream.”

Enright said one of his main goals for the season was putting his athletes in the best position to compete for a team win and he felt the girls have been able to do that and hopes they continue to do so into the postseason.

“We want to get those personal bests and work together to try and score in every event,” Enright said. “We want to see how far we go as a team, whatever we can do while still having a good time and staying healthy.”

Rosary finished in sixth place with 47 points. The Royals had two gold medals. Vivian Wyller finished first in the 1,600 in 5:11.81 and Katie Kostro jumped 5-2 to win the high jump.

Burlington Central finished right behind Rosary in seventh with 41 points. Emilie Anderson was the lone winner for the Rockets. She won the discus with a toss of 97-2.

St. Charles East came in eighth with 40 points. The Saints got 15 of their 40 points in the 800, where Marley Andelman held off Sipla in the final stretch to win in 2:16.96 while Nicole Mayer came in fourth after crossing the line in 2:22.25.

Kaneland finished 10th out of 14 teams with 27 points. Its best finish came in the pole vault where Cora Heller cleared 10-6.