XC National Powerhouses Scouting Report: Naperville North Girls (IL)

<p> MileSplit is going around the country talking to top coaches of the nation&#39;s best high school cross country programs for some inside info on their squad&#39;s success and what to look forward to this coming season from them.</p>

 

Naperville North is ready to make some noise this fall as they return six of their top seven girls. After losing to a tough Glenbard West at the always competitive Illinois state meet, the lady Huskies captured the 2nd auto qualification spot to NXN with a 2nd place finish at the Midwest NXN Regional behind Carmel High School out of Indiana (placed 4th at NXN).  Then at NXN this team put together a 13th place finish. Returning almost their entire team will make these girls a potential threat for the podium come mid-December.

 

Girls Top 7 Returnees Times : 5K XC - 3 Miles XC - 3200m - 1600m

Q&A with Coach Iverson

Top 7 Girls Returnees from 2013 XC Season (5K Times)

1) Elly Deturris   18:58.70
2) Judy Pendergast   19:05.00
3) Claire Hamilton   19:05.20
4) Kate Shannon   19:27.50
5) Emory Griffin   19:31.60
Average Time: 19:13.60 Total Time: 1:36:08.00 1-5 Split: 32.90
6) Emily Hamilton   20:06.10
7) Allison Ray   20:18.90

 

Top 7 Girls Returnees from 2013 XC Season (3 Mile Times)

1) Elly Deturris   17:16.00
2) Kate Shannon   17:22.80
3) Claire Hamilton   17:26.00
4) Ella Guppy   17:38.00
5) Emory Griffin   17:38.00
Average Time: 17:28.16 Total Time: 1:27:20.80 1-5 Split: 22.00
6) Judy Pendergast   17:53.00
7) Allison Ray   18:17.00

 

Top 7 Girls Returning 3200m Times from 2014 Outdoor Season

1) Elly Deturris   10:54.53
2) Claire Hamilton   11:07.68
3) Judy Pendergast   11:15.87
4) Emily Hamilton   11:31.54
5) Abby Sikorcin   11:34.09
Average Time: 11:16.74 Total Time: 56:23.71 1-5 Split: 39.56
6) Anna Mandarino   12:11.03
7) Kathryn Abe   12:17.74

 

Top 7 Girls Returning 1600m Times from 2014 Outdoor Season

1) Elly Deturris   5:09.86
2) Claire Hamilton   5:16.33
3) Emory Griffin   5:16.50
4) Judy Pendergast   5:16.72
5) Ella Guppy   5:28.81
Average Time: 5:17.64 Total Time: 26:28.22 1-5 Split: 18.95
6) Abby Sikorcin   5:34.04
7) Jenny Smith   5:45.54

 

Q&A with Naperville North High School (IL) XC girls head coach Dan Iverson

How many years have you been coaching high school cross country (and at your current school)? 

This will be my 21st year overall and 19th as head coach.

What do you attribute as the main reasons for the success of your program? 

We get a lot of girls willing to buy into a culture where everyone’s hard work matters and raises the level of hard work of those around them.  It becomes a symbiotic situation, and it has made for some lasting success for us.

What would be the best way to describe your style and philosophy of coaching and working with high school runners? 

Yikes.  I’ve not been asked that.  I believe that all runners possess some (and varying) degrees of talent. I also believe that running is an excellent metaphor for life, in that there are significant variables that cannot be controlled and that stand in the way of achieving things we want.  As a result, our mission is to help each athlete to achieve her fullest potential no matter how fast she ever runs or what place on the team she might be.  Everything we do is designed to help our 17:00 kids and our 30:00 kids do that exact same thing.  Whether it be form drills or help with balancing social lives and studying, we want each athlete to be able to grow and improve as runners.  We try to build a culture where they are supported to the maximum degree possible in doing that. 

What are your core beliefs in your training plan and workouts for your cross country squads? 

Well, I graduated from North Central College, and Al Carius there is a Lydiard guy.  That’s where my basic beliefs start.  But I have added over the years elements from coaches like Mihaly Igloi, Jack Daniels, Joe Vigil, Vern Gambetta, Jay Johnson and Scott Simmons.  At the high school level, Scott Christensen has been an enormous help.   If you take small elements from all of those guys, you’ll get a sense of what we go after in ourprogram.  The people I’ve mentioned have different strengths, of course, but we basically build towards four years of significant aerobic development through doing as much quality distance training as we can.  We have become more sophisticated over time at this, as we have evolved to a program that is both focused on aerobic development through quality miles, but also through biomechanical development to allow us to perform more quality workouts without risking injury.

What kind of mileage and summer training have your varsity level runners put in over the last 2-3 months? 

Volume is a tough one for us.  The base of everything we do is running, of course, but we do many of our workouts with strength work embedded, so in a two-hour workout session, we may get 6-8 miles of running in, but with more than 30 minutes of strength work and form work sprinkled into the distance running.  And we do a lot of extra cross-training, especially during the summer. But if you’re just looking for mileage, we probably do 40-50 mpw for our top kids plus maybe an additional 3-4 hours each week of cross-training and then 4+ hours of strength training and yoga each week. 

How does you and your team view and approach the post-season national meet opportunity that is the Nike Cross Nationals? 

We have made it an unofficial part of our season.  Our parents organize our trip to NXR, and we try to get as many of our kids as possible to run it.  I like all of our kids to be able to see what a championship meet experience is like.  We had 34 runners at NXR last year, and we hope to have mo

re this year.  We hope to qualify back to NXN, but we also know that there will be years we do not make that happen.  Either way, we really place an emphasis on having a great performance at NXR by the entire team.

How many runners do you return from your top 7 from a year ago? 

Six.

Who is your projected top 7 heading into the cross country season? 

Tough to tell.  I’d start with the six returners as front-runners, but Kate Shannon may take a bit of time to make it back there, as she is healthy now, but coming back from a hip injury that kept her out of track.  Otherwise, we have Elly DeTurris, Claire Hamilton, Judy Pendergast, Ella Guppy and Emory Griffin as our other returners.  We also have Claire’s sister Emily who is a good bet to compete, along with fellow seniors Abby Sikorcin, Anna Mandarino and Jenny Smith.  Juniors Jenny Gibson and Allison Ray should challenge along with sophomores Grace Martinez, Kathryn Abe and Gabby Champion.  We also have an excellent freshman class of athletes, a couple of whom could contribute.  As a result, our top seven will be the product of a pretty deep group.

Who are your team captains or leaders and what stands out about them as examples for the rest of their teammates? 

We have six captains.  Elly DeTurris, Jenny Smith, Abby Sikorcin, Monica Sun, Anna Mandarino and Emily Hamilton.  They were voted by their teammates last year, and I rely on them to set the tone for the year.  They organize many of our activities and set the theme for the year.  They are a big factor in creating the proper culture each year.  They need to be somewhat assertive in this respect.

Who have you been most impressed or surprised with their improvement and/or fitness from their summer training? 

Oh, there are a lot.  Everyone I mentioned in question #8 has impressed me with their fitness.  Also, we have probably 5-6 freshmen who are running well above the level where we see most freshmen.  We do have a few there who could contribute for us. 

Any impactful freshmen or transfers to join the team this season? 

The freshmen who could make an impact are Natalie Dunnett, Anna Platou, Shannon Jennings, Sam Prazma and Sarah Schmitt.

What are the top invitational meets that your team will be attending this season? 

We will run at the Spartan Challenge at Pleasant Valley (IA), the First to the Finish Invite at Detweiller Park, Peoria and at the Griak Invitational at the University of Minnesota.

What will be the biggest obstacle or challenge facing your team this season? 

Well, there are a lot of good teams, both in the Midwest and in Illinois specifically.  Of course, we also work very hard to stay healthy.  But overall, there is not a particular obstacle outside of the other good teams that want the same things we do.

What will be the biggest reason why your team is successful this season? 

Depth.  We need to have some real all-state-level talent step up from the depth we have on the team.  It certainly looks like it’s possible, but I don’t have any objective feedback at this point to back it up as fact.  But I’m definitely optimistic!

What is an annual or common pre-season workout or run for your team? 

We have a mile time trial next week, and that usually is some sort of indicator, and we also have an intrasquad meet on August 28th that we run on the same course each year, so that gives us some measure as far as comparison. 

What is an annual or common mid-season workout for your team? 


We workout at a local forest preserve with a big hill that used to be a landfill.  It’s a great place to run, and to do a variety of workouts as the season progresses.  But that hill at Blackwell Forest Preserve is a major part of what we do. 

What is an annual or common championship season or end-of-season workout for your team? 

We are switching up some of those workouts this year, so everything is new.  I’d hesitate to mention something we haven’t done yet!

What are your top 3 goals for this year's squad? 

Our targets this year – set by the girls, BTW, not by me – involve doing very well in our conference, our state and well enough at NXR to return to Portland.