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

September 15, 2005 - Boys and Girls Defeat Hoffman Estates

Both Palatine teams ran to victory tonight over Hoffman Estates at Deer Grove East.  The girls won easily, going 1-11 in the Open race and 1-6 in the varsity race.  On the boys side, we won 15-44 on the F/S side and 19-40 on the varsity side.  Steve Finley won the varsity race in 15:22, leading us to victory even as we held out Glenn Morris and Sagar Patel for the big weekend race at Detweiller.  In total, I think 90% of our kids ran a Deer Grove PR tonight.  I'll update everything more this weekend, but it was a great night for the Pirates.  Look forward to Detweiller results and full Deer Grove results on Sunday when I get back from Peoria.

September 10, 2005 - Hurricane Katrina Fundraiser

The boys and girls cross country teams are currently raising money to send to the American Red Cross for hurricane relief.  We will be collecting money through next week and will be presenting a check to the student council as part of our school-wide drive to help out.  Please contribute to our kids as they try to raise some money.  Any boys or girls athletes that raises $40 will also get their CC team shirt for free.  All checks should be made payable to Palatine High School.  If anyone wants to send money, you can address the envelope to:

Palatine High School
1111 Rohlwind Rd.
Palatine, IL 60074
c/o Steve Currins or Chris Quick

Workout Results - Some good, some bad

I posted the results of our mile repeat threshold workout in the Workout section.  We had a ton of great efforts along with some kids who quit in the later stages of the workout.  Be accountable for your performance!  If things went poorly, try to fix what was wrong.  Overall, everyone worked hard and made progress.  The freshmen really impressed today with their toughness throughout the workout.  Way to go all.

Great efforts - Steve Finley (great avg + a 4:55 close, Kevin O'Brien nice avg + 5:27 close), Alex Soto, Alex Mourousias (four sub-6:00 miles), Morris and Patel (good rhythm and minimal pain), Matt Dettloff (consistent effort in return from injury, and all the freshmen.

Weak efforts - It is the duty of everyone to finish hard even if they fall off the pace of the front group.  Concentrate - there was too much quitting in some of the JV and Sophs today.  We jog road-runs everyday at 7:00 pace.  How can you justify running anywhere near that in a track workout?  Need to improve: Andrew Bollman (8:28, 7:14 on last two - 8:28 is not acceptable for your talent level), Kretschmar (7:08, 7:48 on last two), Eddie Lopez (6:57, 7:10 on the last two - quitting is a habit, don't get used to it), Kevin LeClair (6:59, 7:17 on the last two - this is our normal jogging pace), Wojdyla (8:10, 7:31 on the last two), and Don Macatangay (6:53 to close is not acceptable).

Alumni Updates - Check out recent results in the Alumni section.

Mileage Updates - I updated Week 3 and Week 4 miles and added the Mileage Progression for 2005.  Sunday miles are now included, but even without those we are still running more than we did last year.  Let's stay healthy and keep it up.

September 9, 2005 - Pirates Win Hard Fought Duals at Barrington

"Are you starting to believe?"

Each time that we go out to Barrington, we know that we will be given a tough race from both their boys and girls squads.  Thursday was no different.  The varsity boys won 26-31 behind a course record run from Steve Finley.  Finley ran 14:55 to break Glenn Morris' course record of 15:24 set two years ago.  The girls squad held off a charge by the Barrington girls in the first 1 1/2 miles to score an 18-42(?) victory.  I'm not sure about Barrington's score, but the ladies swept the top four behind Amy Laskowske's winning effort.  On the F/S boys level, our kids showed they have a lot to learn, taking a 24-31 loss from a talented Barrington squad.  It was our first F/S loss in three years.

Boys Varsity - Finley Sets a Monster Course Record

If this season turns out well for us in the end, this meet may be the turning point.  Barrington is a very good team.  Their top three seniors all impressed last year during the track season, and all of their top five ran career bests on their home course.  We found a way to win though.  Again, we held out Glenn Morris as we continue to be patient with his rehab from surgery.  The real story though is how the team came together to meet a strong challenge on the road.

Steve took the pace out in a blazing 4:43, hit the two mile in 9:39, and finished in 14:55.  Nick Farina gamely held on through the 1 1/2 mile mark, but Steve just put him away in the last half of the race.  The race between these two was the essence of MSL dual meet running: both guys ran with a lot of passion.  Farina's 15:08 bested the course record by 16 seconds, and he lost.  That's the same thing that happened with Finley running Craven last week.  The competition is always of such great quality in this conference.  Coach Gorman said that only 10-15 guys have ever broken 16:00 at Ron Beese Park, and five guys did it in this race alone.  What a great race!

Behind Steve, our guys ran their hearts out.  Farina and Laugal went 2nd and 3rd, but Sagar countered with a great 15:46 run.  We didn't even think he was going to run before warm-up, but he came through.  Tomek came in next.  Then our pack hit the line all together - Esberaldo 16:02, Smoody 16:03, and O'Brien 16:07.  The real hero of this meet was OB.  He ran 30 seconds faster than he did in the invite last Saturday.  Fairleigh was right behind OB at 16:12, and then we got two bumps on their 5th man from Soto (16:20) and Holbach (16:22).

A ton of other guys ran great for us as well.  Mike McCain used the power of the FACTOR to run his best race of the year, finishing in 16:37 to be only 8 seconds off of their fifth man.  Tom Barsella won a huge fight to the finish, finishing right behind Ulises who battled his butt off with the Barrington 5th guy for a lot of the race.  Chris Perry won a tough sprint to the finish, running only 2 seconds slower than he did on our course last week.  Considering that our course is a bit shorter than Beese, all three of our track guys ran PR's - Kulikowski, Cepuran, and Dan O'Brien.  It was a total team effort, and we got the job done.

Check out this comparison between our top 10 guys from yesterday and from our run here two years ago.  Keep in mind that the race two years ago was on October 2 and that our guys that year went on to win a state trophy a month later.  We're still going to add Morris and Ducore to this mix of improving guys, and we are still better at every spot.  Are you starting to believe?

Boys F/S - Barrington Snaps our Three-Year Streak

Well, all streaks have to end sometime, and it is inevitable on F/S since we use our best sophs quite a bit on the varsity team.  We ran both Smoody and O'Brien up, but that is not an excuse.  We simply did not get the job done.  Alex Mourousias led the way with a third place finish.  Some of the freshmen continued to improve from their first race 10 days previous, but there really isn't too much good to say.  We'll do better next time and that is all. 

September 4, 2005 - Result and Split Updates

Firstly, I updated the Alumni page with some recent results from our guys in college.  I want to try and keep this up-to-date so graduates...PLEASE send in your results!

I updated the Results section with team splits for the first two meets.  I will also try to copy and paste the Kompusport results onto our site.  Even though we won yesterday, there is a lot of work to do.  I have a good feeling that this team will keep on progressing throughout the season.  Gear up for a tough week of training and racing.

September 3, 2005 - Palatine Boys and Girls Stellar at Hinsdale

The Palatine program had a great day Saturday at the Hinsdale Hornet-Red Devil Invitational.  We excelled on all levels in both boys and girls.  Both the boys and girls varsity won, the boys sophomores won, the girls open team won, and our boys freshmen placed second.  Individual winners included Amy Laskowske (girls varsity), Mat Smoody (boys sophomore), and Torey Wright (girls open).  Neuqua Valley gave us a great challenge in all three boys races, placing second in the varsity and the sophomore while winning the freshmen race by a ton.  The boys and girls competed well and showed that our time together in the summer was well-spent.  Way to go everyone!

Full results will be posted later today at Kompusport.com. 

Boys Varsity - Finley Leads Team to a Narrow Win

With both Sagar Patel and Glenn Morris nursing or coming back from IT band injuries, the leadership role on the course fell to Steve Finley.  Steve and Jon Popejoy had a great duel, turning in two of the fastest times of all-time at Katherine Legge Park.  Popejoy set the meet and course record with his 14:48, and Finley ran a tough 14:56 for second.  Finley placed second, but was 35 seconds clear of the rest of the field.

Behind Steve we ran okay, but will have to improve our 2nd and 3rd guys in relation to Steve.  The good news is that Glenn ran for the first time since the state CC meet last year and finished with relatively little pain and tightness.  We held him back throughout the race, only allowing him to pass our 4th man at the two mile mark.  He finished 18th as our fourth man.  Esberaldo and Sagar finished in 16:01 and 16:02 to place 10th and 11th.  Smoody would have been our fourth man with his 16:13 from the sophomore race.  Holbach ran 16:26 to serve as our actual 5th man behind Glenn.  We won, but it will be a slower climb up this year as we stay patient with Glenn and Sagar.

In other good news, Ulises Reynoso ran a great race, dropping his PR to 16:35.  Danny Rakaric ran 16:39 to better his time from last year, by 19 seconds.  He is finally starting to round into form.  Mike McCain and Don Macatangay also dropped quite a bit of time along with Tom Barsella, who ran well in his first invite ever.

Boys Sophomore - The Fantastic Four Carry Us to Victory

It was a tight battle the entire race, but we managed to edge out Neuqua Valley by one point in this one.  It was a bit of a hollow victory since Neuqua's number one varsity guy is a sophomore, but we improved by a ton in relation to how bad they beat us last year at this meet (56-133 in the freshmen race).  Even with Chris Derrick winning the sophomore race with the 15:54 he ran in the varsity, Neuqua would only have won 44-79.  We have improved vastly in the last year. 

Smoody set out to win this race, but he had his hands full with the two Hinsdale South athletes.  All three of them were together at 200 meters to go, but Smoo had a much better kid today than he had on Tuesday, and he nipped Lee Vlcek at the line.  Kevin O'Brien followed right on his heels with the kick that won us the meet.  He nipped Neuqua's #1 guy at the tape for a crucial two point swing.  Both Alex Mourousias and Eddie Lopez showed how much they've improved, running to 11th and 14th place finishes.  Eddie really made a huge leap from last year's 68th place finish in the freshmen race.  Andrew Krestchmar finished in 38th as our 5th man to drop some serious time off of his 3-mile best.  Paul Kwak, Lewis Conley, and Tim Anderson were also greatly improved.

Boys Freshmen - Laskowske and Novikov Impress in Invite Debut

The freshmen team placed a surprising second to Neuqua Valley.  Many of these boys were racing in their first ever invitational.  We were led by Tommy Laskowske, who ran like a little bulldog to take a 3rd place finish.  His old Sundling teammate Vlad Novikov finished in 6th with a great finish.  He'll be awesome as long as he turns in his math assignments this year.  Adam Bethke continued to improve with his 18th place finish while Luke Kierys (35th), Justin Olson (43rd), Colin Morlock (54th), and Juan Perez (55th) provided great depth.  Eric Colish had a much better race than his first one on Tuesday, and Bill Zimmerman and Jacob Starcevich also ran well.  Thankfully, all of our freshmen managed to avoid the dangerous water moccasins in the creek!

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.