Above: Zane Meyer (Edgewood) talks about his win in the 2024 edition of Detweiller at Dark
Detweiller at Dark marked the unofficial beginning of the cross-country season for select Indiana runners. While official practices don't begin until August 5th, and IHSAA competitions start on the 17th, a few Hoosiers decided to test their summer training fitness at one of Illinois' most iconic races, Detweiller at Dark. This 3-mile competition is similar to Indiana's Nike Valley Twilight, with runners racing under the lights. The event features open and junior high sections before the main event of the evening, the high school races.
Related:
Detweiller at Dark Results
Detweiller at Dark Photos
For the girls, we saw a dominant performance from the Indiana superclub team, WRSquared. The team placed 2-3-4-5-6, consisting of Ava Jarrell (Pendleton Heights) and Kenya Leitch (Columbia City), as well as recent graduates Liz Smith (Westfield), Jessica Hegedus (Avon), and Hannah Moore (Northwestern).
This past track season, Jarrell emerged as one of Indiana's newest powerhouse runners, winning the state 3200m championship and running a 10:07.66 3200m conversion to earn a runner-up finish at New Balance Nationals. Running close behind Ava for much of the race was Kenya Leitch, who finished 3rd. With one full year of high school under her belt, we could see a significant improvement from her. She had a consistent indoor and outdoor track freshman campaign, breaking 5 minutes in the 1600m and finishing 7th in the 3200m at the state meet. Her best times last season ranged from 18:30 to 18:45, and based on her performance Friday night, she could be one of Indiana's top 10 girls' high school XC runners this season as a sophomore.
Smith, Hegedus, and Moore all graduated this past spring after successful high school running careers and are set to compete at the NCAA Division I level this fall at Murray State, IU Bloomington, and Butler, respectively. Eve Schurr, a former Avon teammate of Hegedus, also had a great race, finishing in the top 15. Schurr had a breakout track season this past spring, qualifying for the IHSAA state 3200m with a sub-11-minute performance. With the confidence from this past spring, Schurr could see significant improvement this fall as one of Avon's frontrunners.
For the boys, we saw a different picture with Edgewood's Zane Meyer taking the tape with a time of 14:47 for the 3-mile race, just 17 seconds off the meet record held by Hamilton Southeastern alumni Gabe Fendel from 2017. Meyer finished just off the podium in XC last fall with a 28th-place finish at the state meet at LaVerne Gibson. Zane would have a relatively quiet track season but looks to be right back into form so far with this preseason win. We could expect him to be one of the top 10-20 runners in the state come this fall.
Jalen Strietelmeier from Highland also had a great race, finishing just outside the top ten with an 11th-place finish. Strietelmeier made significant improvements this past track season, including a sub-9:30 performance at the Carmel 3200m Showcase and earning a spot in the state finals for the 1600m. In XC last fall, he finished 49th and looks to be in contention for a top-25 podium finish at the state meet this fall.
The next two Hoosier boys finished side-by-side, with Hamilton Southeastern's Riley Schamp and Avon's Zach Risner finishing within one-tenth of a second of each other. Risner finished 30th at last year's state XC Championship, just two positions behind Meyer, who won Friday night's race. This also appears to be an impressive performance by Schamp, as his approximate 5K time from Friday night is close to the performances he was hitting towards the end of his sophomore campaign last season.
With a small taste of cross-country, many programs will continue training until the IHSAA competition season officially begins in three short weeks. Follow along with updates throughout the season on our new social media handles for Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @milesplitheartland.