T.F. South's Middleton takes fifth at South Suburban Blue Conference meet

LANSING | T.F. South runner Travis Middleton doesn't seem to have a problem dealing with the elements.

Middleton captured fifth place and all-conference status at the South Suburban Blue Conference cross country championships Saturday morning at North Creek Meadow.

Middleton and the other runners in the boys race had to deal with a steady rain, which began to fall just as the girls race was finishing. Middleton finished in 16 minutes, 38 seconds while Bremen's Jacob Widstrom finished first with a time of 16:05.

"I felt pretty good today," Middleton said. "It was tough with a lot of good competition. I think I did pretty good too. Next week I would like to get in the sixteen twenties."

Rebel Anthony Kyte finished in 15th place for T.F. South with a time of 17:35. Kyte, Middleton and the rest of the Rebels will travel to Turtlehead Lake Forest Preserve next weekend to compete in the Andrew Regional.

"Today was a little bit cold, and with the rain, but I know I PRed," Kyte said. "Next week with regionals I'm just trying to go to sectionals. Each week I've been PRing by 15 or 20 seconds. I'm just trying to get down to the fifteens."

T.F. North's Christopher Syablewski finished 19th for the Meteors with a time of 17:55. T.F. South's DJ Jackson and Tyrone Richardson took 30th and 31st respectively for the Rebels.

In the girls championship, Lemont's Claire Gagen captured first place with a time of 19:00. T.F. South's Jessica Fierce finished 16th and teammate Alexiz Garcia took 22nd in the race for the Rebels. Fierce finished with a time of 21:11 which was also a personal record.

"I wanted to get top 10 but that didn't happen," Fierce said. "I PRed by thirty seconds though so I still did well."

Garcia treated the conference championships as any other race and feels the strategy helped her.

"I just didn't want to think of it so highly," Garcia said. "I thought of it as a normal invite so I wouldn't get too nervous or worked up about it, and I think that's what kind of helped me. Hopefully, I can do that again for regionals."