Achy but not breaky: Hawks overcome injury; finish sixth

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Oregon’s Jeneen Schier led the Hawks to a sixth place finish in Class 1A. (Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@svnmail.com)

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PEORIA – All season long, Oregon sophomore Jeneen Schier and senior Lynea Axelson have run together and pushed each other with great success.

At the Class 1A girls state cross country meet on Saturday, the pair was split up for the first time, but the Hawks still soared to a 6th-place finish among 20 teams. It’s Oregon’s best finish since taking fifth in 2003.

“I think they put everything out there on the line,” first-year coach Lynn Ahlgrim said of her team, “they gave it their all and I just hope they’re proud of themselves.”

The race capped off a trying week for Axelson, whose race status was in doubt for a short time. On Tuesday, the top of her right foot ached and she was unable to run on it. It improved slightly on Wednesday and Thursday, and by Friday, she was close to 100 percent.

Midway through the race Saturday, she and Schier came around a corner which led to the long uphill climb toward the finish line. The injury which slowed her on Tuesday resurfaced, and she began to drop back.

“When I was going around that turn, there was a sharp pain in my foot,” Axelson said. “I tried to get myself to go up with her, but it hurt so bad.”

Schier noticed right away something wasn’t right.

“We weren’t by each other like we were most of the season,” Schier said. “It was definitely strange.”

Schier went on to finish 19th in 18 minutes, 44 seconds. A clearly-hobbled Axelson came in 29th, with a time of 19:09.

“It was very painful, but I just told myself, ‘I want to finish it, I don’t want to just drop out,’ ” Axelson said. “I needed to do it for all the girls. We’ve worked hard all season, and I knew if I stopped early, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.”

Ashley Nordman (35th, 19:25), Shelby Hunter (81st, 20:16) and Kate Groenhagen (104th, 20:45) also contributed to the team’s final team total of 185. Rounding out the lineup were Briana Ahlgrim (137th, 21:41) and Jenn Rogers (150th, 22:12).

Winnebago won its fifth straight state title by amassing 123 points. Individually, Kelly Curran of Bloomington Central Catholic defended her title with a time of 17:46.

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