Camaraderie is a pivotal component of cross country because it requires constant dedication week in and week out.
How everyone trains and conducts themselves reverberates throughout the entire team and determines the tenor of the season.
The Chatham Glenwood girls cross country team ultimately won the Class 2A team state title in November because each participant ran for each other.
Coach Mike Garber said if you know your teammates will always be there fighting for you, the trials and rigors become less strenuous. This bond is also a key ingredient drawing new runners into the fold.
“You have to want to be there because it is a tough thing to do just in general,” Garber said. “You want to feel included, you want to feel like you’re part of something. And I really do think that’s something we’ve done a good job is trying to bring everybody to do something together. I don’t have to run, I get to run.”
Glenwood, The State Journal-Register’s Team of the Year for the 2025-26 school year, featured three of the top seven runners for its second state title in the last three years.
Departing senior Ashlyn Chopra (17:12.49) earned third place at Detweiller Park in Peoria, while junior Sophie Rentmeister (17:15.40) ushered fourth place. Junior Ali Londrigan picked up her second seventh-place medal in 17:21.78 and was named The State Journal-Register’s 2025 Large School Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year.
Each marked the best finishes in program history.
“It’s really just fun for us three, especially because we’re always competing and always working together, not even just in practices but also in races,” Rentmeister told The State Journal-Register in May. “If Ashlyn’s in front of me, she’s pushing for me to be faster.
“We’re pushing each other always, and it’s just great to go out there, compete and when we cross the finish line, we have someone to high-five and say congratulations.”
That extends to the track and field season.
“We all stay to the end of the meets,” said Chopra, who will run at the University of Dayton. “We all cheer on every race, whether it’s track, whether it’s field, whether it’s hurdles — anything. We just all cheer on each other, so it’s nice to be able to have the positive atmosphere to get stronger and get faster knowing that you have such a good support system.”
Garber said he enjoyed watching the trio sweep the top three spots during the cross-country season, but he also relished seeing other runners, such as sophomore Ali Broaddus, junior Brenna Sloman and freshman Milly Celletti, reinforce the lineup with top marks.
Broaddus (17:58.45) and Sloman (18:38.18) each rebounded from iron deficiencies midseason and finished 32nd and 66th at state, respectively.
“It’s a testament to these girls and what they did,” Garber said. “They did what we preached all season, and it’s just showing up for your teammates.”
Garber, The State Journal-Register’s Coach of the Year, never keeps things the same with a new wrinkle each year after becoming the boys and girls cross country head coach in 2013.
He has welcomed former runners as assistants over that span, including Lindsay Cook, Grant Kaiser and Taylor Justison. The 2000 Glenwood graduate also coaches girls track and field.
It’s just another aspect of that team culture.
“For me it’s about having the kids not look at results all the time and not look at what other teams around the state are doing because the comparison trap is the thief of joy,” Garber said. “We should enjoy what we’re doing instead of looking at what everybody else is doing. Our competition is the clock, our competition is ourselves. It’s us and our race.”
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: See the 2026 Team and Coach of the Year in the Springfield area
Reporting by Bill Welt, Springfield State Journal-Register / State Journal-Register
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By Bill Welt, Springfield State Journal-Register | USA TODAY Network
