The girl’s varsity track team is West Suburban Silver Conference champions again and in the process did something that has never been done before. For the first time in DGN history, the Lady Trojans won both indoor and outdoor varsity conference.
DGN tied Oak Park River Forest with 113 points to be named co-champions. OPRF entered the 4×400 meter relay, and last event, trailing DGN by two points. Despite owning the second slowest seed time at 4:06, OPRF upset the second seeded Trojans. The race came down to the final runners of each team.
“Once I got the baton I was a couple of meters behind OPRF’s anchor. I gained on the girl in front of me towards the last 100 meters when she was dying out,” Senior Zayna Jan said.
Jan was unable to catch OPRF’s final runner as they edged DGN 4:01.22, winning by a mere 1.22 seconds. The Trojans’ second place time was still fast enough to beat the automatic state qualifying time. Jan was also part of the conference champion 4×800 meter relay.
Their time of 9:33.23 was nearly 10 seconds faster than the Glenbard West team that finished in second. Rounding out the all-conference relay performances was the 4×200 meter relay that finished in first. Both relays finished better than the automatic state qualifying times.
In order to qualify for the state meet, all three relays will need to place in the top two or beat the state qualifying times again at the sectional meet May 14. The meet will be held at DGN.
The IHSA girls’ state meet will take place at Eastern Illinois University from May 21-22.
Damian Margarites | Feature Editor
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