Belvidere North’s Jenna Lutzow second in 800 at state track

By Bob Balgemann

Reporter

BELVIDERE – Five individuals and a relay team made it to the girls’ state track meet at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston.

Two of them, junior Jenna Lutzow and sophomore Taylor Ferguson, advanced to Saturday’s finals with Lutzow taking second place in the 800-meter run.

North will be represented by three boys in the state track meet, also at Eastern.

In addition, the Blue Thunder caught 9.61 pounds of fish at the Lake Pierce sectional in Rockford to qualify for the state fishing tournament last weekend in downstate Clinton, but didn’t place. Head coach was Jim Ryan with Brad Betke driving the boat and Camden Johnson and Jack McCarty doing the fishing. Elkville caught 10 fish to win state.

In Friday’s girls’ track preliminaries Lutzow took second in Heat I with a time of 2:14.77. It was a near photo finish as first place came in at 2:14.22.

Her time was almost a seven-second improvement over the 2:22.14 she turned in while finishing second in the sectional.

In Saturday, May 21 finals, she once again improved on her time, completing the 800 meters in 2:11.80, two seconds behind the state champion, senior Mickaela Hackbarth of Downers Grove South.

Also in the preliminaries, Ferguson finished in a three-way tie for first place in Flight III of the pole vault, clearing 10 feet, three inches.

Saturday May 21, she reached 10 feet, nine inches, which was good for 11th place. The winner, senior Katie Schroeder from suburban Grayslake Central, achieved 12 feet, three inches.

Ferguson qualified for state by taking third in the Huntley sectional, with a height of 10 feet, three inches.

In other state track events Lady Blue Thunder sophomore Grace Bundschuh came within an eyelash of qualifying for the finals in the 100-meter dash. Her time was 12.67 seconds with the second and final qualifying place in Heat I finishing in 12.46 seconds.

She was the sectional champion.

Sophomore Sabrina Elder qualified for state by placing second at the sectional in the 400-meter dash. She took fourth in Heat III of the 400 preliminaries and didn’t make it to the finals.

Senior Shannon Carlsen, who took a qualifying fourth in sectional discus competition, was 10th in Flight II of the state preliminaries and did not advance.

North’s 4-by-800-meter relay team reached state by winning the Huntley sectional.

At state, the team, consisting of Lutzow, Elder, Stephanie Robles and Mia Rodriguez, was fifth in Heat II and didn’t reach the finals.

Boys’ state track

Senior Eryk Yunk, the last in a string of highly successful Yunk runners, will go to the state track meet in his final year at Belvidere North. He won the DeKalb sectional championship in the 3,200-meter run with a time of 9:16, which was 14 seconds in front of the runner-up.

Sophomore Sebastian Gutierrez qualified by winning a field event, the high jump, clearing six feet, nine inches. That was four inches higher than the second-place finisher.

Another distance runner and a senior, Eli Walker, qualified in the 1,600-meter run, being clocked in 4:25.19. That was just two seconds behind the winner, from Huntley.