Morris’ Dudley wins first regional title in school history

MORRIS – It was a good day all-around for the Morris boys and girls cross country teams Saturday at the Class 2A Morris Regional.

All 14 of Morris’ runners who took part in the competition set personal records, and both teams qualified for next weekend’s Peoria Notre Dame Sectional, which will be held at Detweiller Park, the course normally reserved for the state meet.

Since restrictions allow only 50 runners at a time, the regional was broken down into three flights in both the girls and boys competitions.

Morris sophomore Joy Dudley got things off to a rousing start in the first flight of the day. Dudley won her ninth consecutive race, edging out Geneseo’s Esther Brown by a tenth of a second. The two were neck and neck for the final 100 yards, with Dudley earning the win with the lean at the end, finishing in 19:24.3 to Brown’s 19:24.4. Dudley’s win was the first individual girls regional title in school history.

Geneseo won the team title with 25 points, followed by Lemont (65), Providence Catholic (72), Morris (114), Ottawa (156), Streator (172), Chicago Heights Marian Catholic (181), LaSalle-Peru (189), Tinley Park (273) and Manteno (279). The top five teams advance to next week’s sectional. It is the 14th consecutive season that Morris will advance to the sectional.

“At the start of the year, my goal wasn’t to win the regional championship,” Dudley said. “But I started winning races and my times got better, and I started thinking that a regional championship wasn’t out of my league. I started to get more confident that I could do it.”

Dudley did not run cross country in grade school and said she only tried out as a freshman when her sister gave her a pamphlet that Morris coach Joe Blumberg had handed out.

“I always ran around a lot as a kid,” she said. “Then I got the pamphlet that coach Blumberg gave to my sister and tried it. Within two days, I fell in love with the sport.”

During the summer, when no one was quite certain whether or not there would be a season, Dudley stayed prepared by running with her father, Rick, five days a week.

“Joy had never run in grade school,” Blumberg said. “And she told me she ran a mile in eighth grade in 11 minutes. She was 23rd in the conference as a freshman and won the conference title this year.

“She ran with her dad, who is also a distance runner, during the quarantine, not even knowing if we were going to have a season or not. That speaks volumes to her character. She wasn’t even mentioned in season previews as a possible race winner, but she isn’t going to be a secret for much longer.”

Also for the Redskins, senior Abby Cunningham finished 23rd in 21:31.5, followed by sophomore Melanie Cunningham (24th, 21:45.5), freshman Abby Hougas (32nd, 22:46.7), sophomore Moirah Mayberry (34th, 22:57.9), junior Maddie Noon (40th, 23:39.4) and junior Olivia Pruess (54th, 25:27.6).

Boys

In the boys race, Morris junior Matt Clark finished fifth with a time of 15:30.6 to lead the Redskins to a third-place finish and their 11th straight sectional appearance.

Lemont took first place with 35 points, followed by Geneseo (45), Morris (72), LaSalle-Peru (111), Chicago Heights Marian Catholic (145), Streator (179), Providence Catholic (188), Ottawa (199) and Kankakee (245). The top five teams advance to the next weekend’s Peoria Notre Dame Sectional.

Following Clark for Morris were senior Nico Ferrero (12th, 17:06.1), sophomore Kaden Welch (13th, 17:08.4), senior Bryce Claypool (18th, 17:34.5), sophomore Evan Ramos (24th, 18:06.6), junior Julian Gonzalez (27th, 18:12.1) and senior Milton Mondragon (28th, 18:15.3).

“It was great to see everyone set a personal record today,” Blumberg said. “We went 7 for 7 in both the boys and girls races. Some of that is due to the perfect conditions we had today, and our training has been designed to be running our best at the end of the year, but most of the credit goes to the kids. For all 14 of them to run their best when it matters most says a lot about the character of these kids.

“It was nice to be on our home course. This is our sixth meet here this year, and everyone has their own little section where they know they pick up some time. Matt Clark made a big move in the woods on the final lap.

“I know these kids don’t want to hear it yet, but Detweiller is generally a faster course than ours, so we certainly hope we can have them all set personal records again next week. It’s a shame there is no state meet, but at least they get to run on the course that usually hosts the state meet. The IHSA cut out a sectional, so there were more teams in the regionals, and they decreased the number of teams advancing to sectionals. Add that to the enrollment range of 600 to 1,600 in Class 2A, and for us to still be able to advance both teams is a big accomplishment.”