Recent News and Updates - E-mail cquick@d211.org

August 31, 2005 - Palatine Boys and Girls Win Openers

Both Palatine teams won their opening dual meets against Prospect last night at Deer Grove East.  The girls scored a perfect 15 points with Amy Laskowske and Carly Bates leading the way.  On the boys side, we won 21-40 behind a strong run from Steve Finley.  Ryan Craven won the race overall in 14:27.  The results are a bit misleading since Murray and Ancyzk did not run for Prospect while we did not run Glenn Morris.  Look for this to be a much better match-up by the time Palatine Invite rolls around in three weeks.  We also won the F/S by a score of 22-33 behind a great first place run by Alex Mourousias.  I have updated the all-time lists for bests on each level at Deer Grove and stored a bunch of old info in the Archive section.  Check out those lists in the History section.

Above: Steve Finley, Ryan Craven, and Sagar Patel duel early in Tuesday's race.  Craven won in 14:27 with Finley second in 14:42.

Varsity Race Report - Pirates Score 21-40 Win in Debut

Both us and Prospect came into this meet highly ranked in preseason polls.  Both teams ran hard from the gun, and the result was a highly competitive season opener for both teams.  We held out Glenn Morris as a precaution against a lingering IT band problem while Prospect did not run either Mike Murray or David Ancyzk.  Things will be much closer the next time we race.  Finley and Craven provided some impressive early season front-running, going through the mile in 4:48.  Craven then surged hard and gapped Steve by quite a bit by the 1 1/2 mark.  Both guys put times in the Top 25 Deer Grove list.  Here are the results for the scorers:

Behind the front two, our depth looked really good.  Sagar ran a 67 second PR over the course to finish in 15:23 while Esberaldo Gonzalez took 30 seconds off of his best to run 15:33.  The best racing of the night took place between Alex Soto, Mat Smoody, and Arthur Baptiste.  All three battled hard throughout the last mile.  Baptiste split our two guys, but all ran well - 15:39 for Soto, 15:40 for Baptiste, 15:41 for Smoody.  We then threw two more guys in right around 16:00 (Rakaric 16:02, Holbach 16:03).  Anytime a lot of guys start out the season breaking or near their best times, it means that they are ready to make significant progress.  Check out our status in relation to our all-time PR's:

F/S Race Report - Pirates Win 22-33

Our boys faced a bit of a challenge on Tuesday with our two best sophomores running up on the varsity level (Smoody and O'Brien).  Alex Mourousias proved that he deserves to be mentioned along with those two by running to a hard-fought win in 13:29 (#4 PHS all-time on the 2.5 mile F/S course).  Alex, Eddie Lopez, and Tom Laskowske provided a great 1-2-3 combo, going 1st, 3rd, and 5th.  Andrew Kretschmar and Vlad Novikov supported them with strong runs in 6th and 7th.  Check out the improvement of these sophomores in comparison to their first ever ever run on the same course a year ago:

Our freshmen also ran well.  Laskowske and Novikov were running in their first race as Pirates, and they were supported by Adam Bethke (15:05), Colin Morlock (15:49), Justin Olson (16:02), Cole Haas (16:05), Luke Kierys (16:09), and Bill Zimmerman (16:19).  Check out the times of our current freshmen compared to times put up by earlier freshmen in their first races at Deer Grove:

August 28, 2005 - Driving Directions

I finally got around to updating this season's driving directions.  Just click on the schedule links to the left to see directions, the time the meet starts, and the departure and estimated arrival times for the team bus.  They are pretty spare, but you should be able to find your way.  The bus times are subject to change, depending on the weather and other factors.

Mileage Updates - Week 1 and Week 2 miles updated.  Check out your progress from week to week.  I will put in the Mileage Progression as soon as I have time to create the Excel Spreadsheet.

Parents - We Need Pictures! Our First Meet is Tuesday

My digital camera died sometime during the 2004 CC season.  Don Macatangay has always been good about bringing his camera and letting us use it.  However, I'd love to get a parent taking pictures at our meets.  Usually, Don just e-mails me the digital photos after the meet (usually in a zip file).  Mr. Holbach and others have also cut me a CD that I can use.  Please let me know if you can help with pictures for the site.  Close ups are the best.  Please shoot at 640 pixels by 480 pixels if you can.  It saves you room on your memory card, and it makes it so that I don't have to purchase more space on the server.  Help us get some great pics of the kids - both boys and girls!

Other Updates

I just scanned this picture of our state placing 4 x 800 meter relay.  Congrats on the All-State finish boys!