BY JOHN DUBOIS
CNHI
DANVILLE —
The Danville Area Community College Jaguars won three national titles in men’s and women’s cross country between 1993-1996, but the decline of interest in the sport at the high school level has made it difficult for DACC to recruit and compete at the national level over the last several years.
The Jaguars took the first step toward returning to their past glory when they kicked off their 2010 season Friday with both teams taking fifth at the Illini Challenge held at the University of Illinois Arboretum in Champaign.
Also competing at the tournament were NCAA Division I schools Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and Butler University, along with the Illinois club team.
The meet begins a new era for the Jaguars as they have a new head coach in former All-American Kyle O’Brien and a full roster of 12 runners for the first time in many seasons.
It was also the first collegiate meet for the entire women’s team and running against such a high level of competition was a new experience for Lady Jaguar Hayley Lockwood, who ran in high school for Salt Fork/Westville.
“This was really an eye opening event for me,” she said. “I knew it would be hard, but not this hard. Everyone out there running was so well. It was a whole new level of running for me.”
The women’s event was a 4-kilometer race and the men’s race was a 6 kilometer.
“The course was beautiful, but there was a big hill right in the middle that was a real killer,” Lockwood said. The wind (20 mph) was a factor and that made the hill even worse.”
The top two individual finishers for the Jaguars were Blake McNeill (20 minutes, 1 second) and Jeff Rehfeldt (21:55).
“Blake has been working hard all summer,” said DACC assistant coach Brian Rohrbach. “He has put in a lot of mileage. He was all-region and a national qualifier last year and is a team leader.
“Jeff is from Iowa and has been away from running for awhile. He was an excellent runner in high school and is rounding into shape. He has shown already flashes of what he is capable of doing.”
Also competing for the Jaguars were Omar Caban, Johnny Ping, former Danville Viking runner Brad Anderson, and Michael Kirby from Westville.
“Omar is from the Chicago area and was all-region last year,” Rohrbach said. “He is one of our sophomores and we are expecting big things from him by the end of the season. Johnny put in a lot of summer work and you never really know what to ask and expect of a freshman, but I expect he will be up their mixing it up with the sophomores by the end of the season.
“Brad is still rounding into shape and we expect he will be a major contributor by the time the Region 24 meet comes around. This is the first time Michael has ever run cross country and he is still getting used to what it takes to compete at this level.”
The final member of the team is Issac Mase from Kenya, but he was unable to compete Friday.
Belinda Cohen from Hoopeston Area was the top finisher for the Lady Jaguars with a time of 17:32. Also running were Ali Burkowski from Schlarman, Keri Kaag from Hoopeston Area, Marily Angel and Lockwood.
“Belinda is in really great shape and we expect she will battle with Ali for the No. 1 spot all season,” Rohrbach said. “Kyle and I are both Schlarman guys and we saw Ali run when she was at Schlarman. She has run a lot and improved a great deal over the summer. She has a tremendous upside.
“Keri is doing a good job learning and is picking up a lot of things. Marily is our only runner from outside the area and she has taken some time to adjust to her new surroundings. I expect she will be mixing it up with the top runners as the year goes on. Hayley has been battling some injuries but has a great attitude and work ethic.”
Lockwood was overall happy with her performance.
“Coming back from an injury, I was pretty happy with how I ran,” she said. “I’m excited I chose to run at DACC. I love my team and we are really close. I ran in meets with Belinda, Ali and Keri in high school and Marily and I had the exact same split for the last mile of this meet so we are thinking of running together next time. Running against this type of competition was one of the reasons I wanted to come to DACC and doing so made me want to work ten times harder to get better.”
The Jaguars next meet is the EIU Panther Open on Friday in Charleston.
