BLOOMINGTON — It’s about time other high school track and field programs around the area start taking the Rochelle Lady Hubs seriously.
At least that’s what junior Morgan Knight said after she and teammates Cesca Vardman, Jacie Wyatt and Morgan Baker followed up a record-setting performance in the 1600-meter relay at the Northern Illinois Big 12 Conference Meet in Sterling with a second record outing at the Illinois Top Times State Championship at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. The girls took fifth place overall at the state meet with a time of 4:11.49, breaking the Rochelle Township High School record the foursome set at the conference meet (4:13.45).
“It felt really great since we’ve been working so hard since our freshman and sophomore years,” Knight said. “For it to start showing, people are starting to realize that Rochelle is here to compete and we’re not just some small school that’s getting lucky.”
Finishing near the top is nothing new for the Lady Hub juniors. The girls qualified for the IHSA Class 2A State Finals last season as sophomores, and three of the four runners (Wyatt, Vardman and Baker) advanced to the outdoor state meet as freshmen.

But the girls have continued to grow stronger, and the tight bond they share is just one of the reasons they’ve been able to consistently perform well.

“We’ve all been friends since freshman year,” Knight said. “We all goof around with each other in practice and try to make really tough practices fun, so when practices are hard we build our energy off of each other and we have a lot of trust in each other.”
Also finishing in the top 10 at the state indoor meet this past Saturday was the Lady Hubs 800-meter relay team, consisting of Wyatt, Vardman, Baker and sophomore Abby Tilton, who was brought on at the last minute to replace freshman Macey Ryan, who ran in the 800-meter relay for Rochelle at the conference meet but fell ill right before the state competition. The girls landed in 10th place overall, finishing with a time of 1:50.85.
“I got a text in the morning and I was really nervous at first but I kept telling myself that it was just a 200,” Tilton said. “I knew I was capable of running and I wouldn’t have been the alternate for the event if the coaches didn’t think I could do it… I just had to calm myself down and tell myself that it’s the same race that I do all the time.”

While the state track and field experience may not have been a new one to her older teammates, it certainly was a new feeling for Tilton, who said that handoffs were her primary concern prior to the race beginning. But the relay team didn’t skip a beat, and Tilton’s nerves evaporated as soon as she stepped onto the track.
“I wasn’t as worried about the race as I was about handoffs,” she said. “I hadn’t been working on them but we did some in warm-ups so as soon as we got those out of the way I was excited… I just had a clear head and I was trying to run my hardest.”
The two relay teams will try to keep their successful run going when the Rochelle Hubs and Lady Hubs track and field squads head to Ottawa on April 4 for a meet with the Pirates and Lady Pirates. Head coach Kyle Kissack said he was extremely proud of how the girls competed over the weekend, and he hopes the girls remain competitive in the practices leading up to their first outdoor meet of the year.
“Their mental toughness was really solid over the weekend,” Kissack said. “To compete in that type of environment and in those types of races, it just speaks volumes about how mature they are and how far they’ve come over the past 2-3 years.”