On September 9th, the girls cross country team made their way down to Peoria, IL to compete against some of the best teams and runners in the state. The varsity girls placed 28th out of 56, which is one place higher than they placed last year.

“As a team we improved from last year and that’s a great accomplishment because of the insane amount of runners that competed this weekend,” junior Noor Abdellatif said.

At about 6,000 runners in the race, two of the top three from Antioch were Izzy Mateja and Natalie Svarc. But the Sequoits’ top runner was junior Natalie Hill who finished the race in 19:21 placing 55th out of 480. With 198 schools and perfect conditions, the Sequoits ran well this past weekend and are hoping to improve as their season advances.

“Our main focus is probably to prepare for the big meet this upcoming weekend,” Abdellatif said. “We need to be mentally focused and we know that dual meets should be our preparation for the future invites that will hopefully take us to sectionals as a team this year.”

The girls’ next meet is against Lakes and Round Lake on September 12th at Fox River Park.