By Roger Gordon

Correspondent

The Aurora girls track and field team’s fifth-place finish out of 63 teams in Division II was historical.

“As far as I know, that’s the best in recent memory, dating back to the 1990’s at least,” head coach Greg Cicero said of his team that scored 30.5 points. “I thought we had an outstanding meet. We had a lot of delays the first day, but the girls stayed very focused. Their concentration and effort the second day were outstanding, which allowed us to keep accumulating points and really solidify our places.”

Leading the way for the Greenmen were a two-headed monster made up of seniors Isabella Cicero and Isabelle Leindecker.

The classmates accounted for one quarter of those standing on the podium for the 400 — Cicero for her third-place finish with a personal-best time of 55.77 (three spots better than she placed at states as a sophomore) and Leindecker for her sixth-place finish with a time of 56.19.

“Isabella ran a really smart preliminary race. She kind of held off a little bit to have something in the tank for Sunday,” said coach Cicero. “When we were getting ready to line up for the finals race, I told her and Isabelle both, ‘Just empty your tanks all day. Go to your reserves. We’re in great shape. Let’s show it.’ And they went out and competed really hard. Isabella had a great race. With about 100 meters to go, it wasn’t clear who was going to win out of the top three girls. Isabella gave herself a great opportunity to win the race.”

Freshman Audrey Miller competed like a state-meet veteran, placing fourth in the 1,600 with a time of 4:56.27 and fifth in the 3,200 with a time of 10:42.55.

“Audrey’s effort in the 3,200 was super consistent. Her laps were almost identical throughout the race,” the coach said. “She made a real strong move with about 700 meters left going for the runner-up spot, but she just kind of ran out of a little bit of fuel, but still was able to hold on and place really high. I was really pleased with her effort in that race.”

The 1,600 relay and the 3,200 relay both finished fourth. In the former, Cicero and Leindecker were joined by classmates Elizabeth Phillips and Olivia Leon in posting a time of 3:58.80. In the latter, Miller and classmates Claire Jenkins and Evelyn Jenkins plus senior Abigail Rogonjic combined for a clocking of 9:16.97.

“It was pretty special to have four seniors finish up our season for us in the 1,600 relay,” said coach Cicero. “It wasn’t necessarily the plan going into the meet, but that’s why we bring everybody down to see what happens. As each link progressed through that race, we kept moving up. We were in eighth, and then Isabelle gave us a great opportunity, and we just brought it home.

“When you go down in your first event, in the 3,200 relay, and you score fourth place, it kind of gives the rest of the team confidence. When that foursome went out there and did that, it was great because I think the rest of the girls fed off of it and they just ran their races. Those girls in the 3,200 relay weren’t intimidated by the moment, and it just led to things rolling for us the rest of the weekend.”

Not to be outdone, senior Riley Verespej tied for sixth in the pole vault with a leap of 11 feet, 6 inches.

“Once Riley cleared the first three heights with no misses on Sunday, we knew she was probably going to make the podium. We needed one thing to swing in our favor, and it did. She went from ninth to sixth pretty quickly,” coach Cicero said. “The past year hasn’t been easy for Riley after being injured last year at the district meet. To come back and achieve a podium finish in your first state meet is incredible. It just shows how hard she worked to get to this point after a year of frustration.”