History Lessons
Coan and Janowski rally for tennis and XC titles
Making history is not supposed to be easy.
And it certainly wasn’t easy for two York athletes to make history by winning individual state championships in the fall.
Junior CJ Coan became the first York girls tennis state champion on Oct. 25 when she beat Marist’s Helena Klooster 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-4 to win the Illinois High School Association Class 2A title at Hersey High School in Arlington Heights.
Two weeks later, sophomore Karlin Janowski became the first Dukes cross country runner since 2000 to win a state title as she won the Class 3A championship on Nov. 8 with a school-record time of 16 minutes, 10 seconds over the three-mile course at Detweiller Park in Peoria.
There were times when it looked like neither huge accomplishment would come to be.
“It was great that we met, and it’s cool that we got to win state in the same year.”
— Sophomore Karlin Janowski on meeting Junior CJ Coan
Coan, seeded second in the state tennis meet, trailed 3-0 in the third set.
“People thought it was over,” York coach Kara Dollaske said. “But it wasn’t.
“CJ is just really good at not dwelling on it and moving on to the next point and staying positive. That can be hard in sports. That mental capacity to stay in it and not get down or frustrated can go a long way.”
York’s CJ Coan is the first state champ in program history.
Photo courtesy of Kara Dollaske
Plus, Coan was happy to have all of her teammates screaming and cheering for her throughout the marathon match.
“When the match was over, I was super excited,” Coan said. “The team ran on court to celebrate. It still hadn’t hit me. My mind was still thinking about the end of the match.”
Janowski, who finished second in the state as a freshman in 2024, found herself fourth in the state in 2005 with roughly 800 meters to go. That’s when she kicked it into night gear and passed all three who were ahead of her to win the race by close to four seconds.
“I executed the plan, and the last 800 meters or so, I was behind about 10 yards or so,” Janowski said. “At that point, it’s all mental because cross country is a mental sport. At the end, you have to push, and you have to have the determination and motivation to keep going.”
Dukes coach Lauren DeAngelis could see that determination.
“You could see it in her face that she was going for it,” DeAngelis said.
Karlin Janowski became the first York runner to win the state cross country championship in 25 years.
Photo courtesy Lauren DeAlgelis
Three weeks after the state championship, Janowski competed in the Brooks XC Midwest Championships in Kenosha during a heavy snowstorm that blanketed the Midwest. She put on her spikes and finished 15th with an 18:21.60 over the 5K course.
“It was interesting because I never ran in snow like that before,” Janowski said. “It was fun.”
In the IHSA meets, team-wise, York finished second in the state in tennis and third in cross country.
Making history was definitely hard for Coan and Janowski. But trying to repeat in 2026 will not be a breeze either.
In tennis, Dollaske points out that out of the top six state finishers, five were juniors, including Klooster. That doesn’t include Sandburg’s Estela Loureiro, who skipped her high school junior season to concentrate on United States Tennis Association national meets, but is likely coming back to play in the IHSA her senior year, so the field should be stacked.
In cross country, Barrington’s Mia Sirois beat Janowski by nearly 30 seconds in 2024, but was injured in 2025 and could be back for her senior year, and the Janowski-Sirois showdown will be highly anticipated.
They have a lot of work to do to repeat, but for now, the two are happy with their accomplishments, and met when they were at an Elmhurst City Council meeting to honor them.
“It was great that we met, and it’s cool that we got to win state in the same year,” Janowski said.
