Pineda-Youniss wins Wisconsin invitational
Boys team takes 3rd at Horlick Rebel Invitational
By Phil English
Northside senior Cuitlahuac Pineda-Youniss drew inspiration from several things during the Horlick Rebel Invitational Saturday in Kenosha, Wis,: the beautiful late summer weather; the big, enthusiastic crowd; and especially the competition.
“(Waterford Union’s Aaron Derner) was trying to intimidate me,” said Pineda-Youniss. “He kept talking the whole way, saying to me 'Good race. It was nice seeing you.'
“I just said, 'What the heck,' and then took off on him. I guess it worked, only to his disadvantage.”
But it worked to perfection for Pineda-Youniss, who won his first-ever cross country invitational title. Pineda-Youniss stayed with a pack of five runners through most of the 3.1-mile race at the Wayne E. Dannehl National Cross Country Course on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. He briefly took a lead at the two-mile mark before falling back.
In the final mile he dialed it up and easily outdistanced Derner heading into the chute for the win in 16:05 (15:38 at the three-mile mark).
It was a strong afternoon for the Mustangs who placed three runners in the top 25, including 11th place finisher, senior Cooper Eben (16:58), and 21st-place finisher, junior Wesley Laytham (17:19).
Other Northside finishers included Charlie Mesimore (33rd, 17:53), Jiason Yang (57th, 18:24), Fahad Sarvari (69th, 18:39), Erik Zuehlke (75th, 18:50) and Forrest Cortes (97th, 19:33).
Mesimore raced with only two weeks of training after suffering a stress fracture in early August. Initially the Northside coaching staff intended for Mesimore to only run the race as a “tempo” run for the first two miles.
Overall it was a big day for Illinois schools in Wisconsin. Northside finished third with 123 points behind winner Lake Zurich (32) and runner-up Libertyville (102). Northside placed fifth in the meet last year. Pineda-Youniss was the top team runner then with in 10th-place finish in 17:02.
Eben improved 11 places from 22nd last year, and was encouraged by the total team performance.
“We’re pretty happy,” he said. “We definitely wanted to improve over last year and I’m pretty sure we all did. It’s still just the start of the season and a good learning opportunity for us. It was good to get out on a great, tough course like this and see where we’re at.”
Laytham, who matched his 21st-place finish of last year, can see the team’s improvement from a year ago. He's hoping he can be a big part of what he hopes is a big Northside success story this fall.
“I just need to work on my base training a bit and get some more endurance,” he said. “If I can come back with a more positive attitude and get better times, maybe I can catch up with Cooper and Cuit.”
