Niles West junior Christine Mujica headed home shortly after the completion of her race at the Class 3A Niles West cross country regional. She didn’t even stick around for the awards ceremony.
But Mujica’s early departure was excused. The runner had been ill and, despite that, turned in a record-setting performance at Saturday’s event.
Mujica finished eighth with a time of 18 minutes, 14.60 seconds, the best time ever run by a Niles West girls runner on the school’s home course.
Mujica broke her own record, which was set at the previous week’s CSL South Meet. Prior to Mujica, the record was held by Megumi Hoshi, a 2011 graduate who went on to run cross country and track at the University of Illinois .
“(Mujica) was a little under the weather this week and didn’t even make practice (the day before the meet),” Niles West coach Anne Heselton said. “So, for her to come out and do what she did, not feeling 100 percent, speaks about her character and about the possibilities for (the Nov. 2 Lake Park Sectional).”
The Wolves (133 points) finished fifth at the nine-team regional, earning one of the six qualifying spots for the sectional.
But Heselton said she believes Mujica has a chance to earn an individual at-large spot at state. That’s an impressive position to be in for an athlete who did not have much of a competitive running background when she arrived at Niles West.
“She didn’t know what she was doing (when she started in the program),” Heselton said about Mujica, whose times are a minute faster than they were last season. “We get a lot of that here at our school. We don’t have real strong junior highs with running, so we see huge jumps (in times).”
Senior Jamie Rohn (24th, 19:47.00), sophomore Danielle Karp (28th, 20:04.00), sophomore Nicole Camburn (35th, 20:25.70) and senior Taylor Genis (38th, 20:45.30) also scored for Niles West
Niles West boys
Junior Theo Beck was the lone Wolves runner to reach the sectional, earning an individual at-large bid after finishing 22nd (16:10.10) at the boys regional.
“(Running on the home course) helps because I know every turn and straightaway and know when to go (faster) and when to reserve (energy) a little bit,” Beck said. “I’m excited about the sectional. I’m just looking to run the best race I can and get the experience.”
The young Wolves (201 points) finished eighth at the 10-team regional. The top six teams qualified for the sectional.
