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

October 9, 2005 - Tons of Updates plus Quick's Marathon

Since my legs are too sore to do much else, I sat at the computer and updated everything that I could think of.  This week gave us a lot to chew on.  We won the MSL West on Thursday, dropped tons of time at St. Charles on Saturday, and worked the marathon on Sunday.  Our boys and girls got together with other District 211 athletes to sponsor water station 7 just past the 11 mile mark.  Their support was very helpful.  I'll get to the marathon summary in a minute.

The following picture is a dear one to me.  It is a picture of all the coaches and the seniors in honor of a class that won four consecutive MSL West titles.  The seniors graduate having gone 24-0 and helping launch us into the upper tier of programs in Illinois.  What a great group of guys!

Picture Updates - I added two new picture galleries courtesy of Bryan Perry.  Check out pictures of the Fremd Dual and the St. Charles meet.

Archives and Miles Updates - I catalogued all of the info from the last two weeks in the Archive section.  I also updated the miles for Week 8 and the Mileage Progression.

Quick's Marathon Story

Everyone tells me each year that they enjoy reading about my marathon adventures so I thought I'd give everyone the lowdown on what happened today.  My goal was to run 2:50.00.  I ended up placing 381st out of 32,900 runners with a time of 2:53.29.  That was over a five minute improvement from last year's 2:58.45.  I had a sub-2:50 going for me deep into the race.  I probably made a bad decision to go for it late in the race, and I died a rugged death in the last three miles.  I decided at Mile 19 though that I would go for the "dare to be great" situation.  I thought I could hold 6:20 pace all the way in and run 2:48.  I made it to about Mile 22 before I started to tie up.  Many thanks go out to Matt Dettloff and Kevin O'Brien for doing their Sunday run with me and giving me someone to talk to.  Special kudos go to OB for not letting me quit on myself when the going got real tough out by Comiskey.  I told OB that he has now seen me at my most desperate and nakedly tired.

October 8, 2005 - F/S and JV Win at St. Charles

The story at the St. Charles Invite this year had a lot to do with two great programs squaring off, well sort of.  Palatine and Glenbard South won all four team races.  We won the freshman-sophomore race with a scant 26 points while also taking the open race with 38 points to Glenbard's 47.  On the flip side, Glenbard South won the varsity with 24 points in a great run, and they loaded the freshmen open race with their best guys to win with 17 points.  Alas, we sat our varsity since they had raced twice a week for the last three weeks, but I think we will see those Glenbard boys down the road in a couple of weeks.  The matchup between #2 and #3 will have to wait until then.  By the way, Bruce MacTaggart took the varsity race with a course record time of 14:44 - what a great run for a great kid!

Boys Varsity - McCain Leads with a 12th place finish.

Each year, we run our junior varsity as our varsity team.  This year, the boys placed 5th overall.  I was very impressed with our results.  Mike McCain, our eighth man, ran tough to finish in 12th and was just off Glenbard's 6th man and 10 seconds off of their 5th.  Behind him, Ulises Reynoso and Matt Dettloff also grabbed top 20 finishes with 18th and 20th, respectively.  Kevin LecLair and Don Macatangay rounded out our scoring.  We also sat Tom Barsella, Alex Soto, and Mike Ducore in an effort to get them fresh for conference next week.  Overall, placing fifth was a triumph for the five guys that we ran.

Boys Open - Anderson and Perry Lead Us to Victory

Considering that our JV was running in the varsity, the task of winning went to our next group of guys.  They delivered big time.  Matt Anderson, Chris Perry, Kevin Yee, and Andrew Bollman finished 4, 5, 6, and 7 overall to secure the title for us over Glenbard South.  Brian Dankowski supported them as the 5th runner in 16th place.  Brian Cepuran and Matt Kulikowski also ran nice PRs and finished in the top 20.  Beating the JV from tough teams like Glenbard and Sandburg was a real achievement for these boys.  Great job!

Above: The JV Bombers pose with another trophy that they did not win.

Boys Freshmen-Sophomore - Lopez and Mourousias Go 1-2

Both Alex Mourousias and Eddie Lopez are fighting for spots in the top 12 varsity crew.  They both delivered another stunning effort, battling hard throughout to finish 1st and 2nd.  Eddie added to his momentum from Thursday to nip Alex by one second.  Our freshmen, Tommy Laskowske and Vlad Novikov, finished 4th and 7th to go with them.  The real hero of the day, though, was Paul Kwak.  Kwakzilla finished in 12th place, dropping his time from the previous year by over four minutes.  The boys won by a 26-33 score over Sandburg.

Above: Our F/S poses after a victorious team run at St. Charles.

Boys Freshmen Open - Kierys Places Top 10

We have won the freshmen open the last two years, but Glenbard South put all of their best freshmen in this race instead of the frosh-soph, and they dominated.  Still, we ran well to finish in third place.  Luke Kierys led us with his 10th place finish while Colin Morlock (15th), Cole Haas (16th, Juan Perez (17th), and Justin Olson (19th) all finished in the top 20.  Eric Colish, Kevin Meehan, Vania Acic, and Jacob Starcevich all broke 20 minutes over three miles for the first time.  In fact, every single freshmen ran better for three miles than he did over that same distance just three weeks ago.  For most guys, this was only their 2nd three mile race.

October 6, 2005 - Boys Win 4th Straight MSL West Title

Both the boys and girls teams won MSL West regular season titles last night with victories over Fremd.  For the boys, the 16-45 win ensured us of our fourth consecutive title.  None of the seniors on our team have been part of a dual meet loss - the winning streak is now at 24 meets.  Combined with the F/S, we are 47-1 in our last four years with the lone loss being to Barrington this year on the F/S level.  The boys will be looking to continue last night's success next weekend at the MSL Championship.  The meet will be hosted by Rolling Meadows at Busse Woods on October 15.

Results and History Updates - I put up the team splits for last night's meet in the Results section.  I also updated all of the Deer Grove lists to reflect results from last night - Overall Course Bests, Palatine Career Bests, Palatine Course Bests, and Palatine F/S Course Bests.

"The Palatine" Updates - I updated all of the History lists to reflect last Tuesday's running of "The Palatine."  The hot weather really kept anyone from running a great time.  You need to look no further than Morris dropping out due to heat exhaustion to see that it was not optimal for fast times.  Still, Finley and Sagar ran their best times.

Boys Varsity - Smoody Runs to Victory with Finley's Help

The goal last night was to be aggressive and to start running with a championship mind-set.  The varsity has no weekend meet this week so everyone was excited to run.  Plus, the seniors had the incentive of facing our cross-town rival in their attempt to run the table for their careers.  This was probably the best dual meet performance I have ever seen from our boys.  Everyone up and down the lineup answered the call.

The boys ran aggressively last night through the mile, and it paid off with some great results.  Steve, Smoo, Glennard, Sagar, and Esbo hit the mile together in 4:50-4:51.  We moved great after that with only Esbo dropping off the pack before the two mile.  Smoo and Steve broke Glenn and Sagar a little bit in the back thousand, but we were still only spread from 9:58 to 10:04 at that point.  Smoo ran a 14 second two mile PR en route to running one of the top 10 best Palatine times on our course (#9).  His 14:50 is the fourth best sophomore time, behind only three efforts from Glenn.  Glenn's fastest as a sophomore was 14:39, and Smoody still has one more chance at this year's Regional.  Glenn struggled a bit in the middle of the race with the after-effects of heat exhaustion (from Tuesday), but both he and Sagar closed well.  Sagar ran 4 seconds faster in a dual than he did at the Palatine Invite.  Esbo also ran within one second of his best from the Invite.

Behind these guys, our depth guys put on a total show.  Kevin O'Brien fought gamely with Jared Hardy for awhile before losing to a half-miler kick.  Then, we threw four more guys in seven seconds, highlighted by a PR from Mike McCain and a monster effort from Eddie Lopez.  Eddie ran 14:59 last year for 2.5 miles and he ran 15:42 for the full-course last night.  Matt Dettloff also ran well to drop his PR 20 seconds to 15:51.  We then threw another pack of four in front of Fremd's #5 - Ducore, Barsella, D. Macatangay, and LeClair.  Other great PR's came from Andrew Bollman, Brian Dankowski, Brian Cepuran, Dan O'Brien, and Matt Kulikowski.  I was proudest of Dankowski.  He has struggled often with injuries over his four years, and he ran a PR in his final home meet.  To top it off, he won a tough battle to the finish to demonstrate the championship mind-set that we are trying to develop.

Boys F/S - Mourousias Ties Palatine Best F/S Time

With his spot in the top 12 assured by recent performances, I challenged Alex Mourousias to go out and break the Palatine course record for the short course.  He ended up tying Mat Smoody's earlier 13:03 in a dominating effort.  Behind him, Tom Laskowske and Vlad Novikov ran their normal consistent races to finish 2nd and 3rd.  The highlight up front was the continued improvement of Paul Kwak, who broke 14:00 for the first time to finish in 4th place.  Last year, Kwak was nearly the slowest guy on the entire team.  Now his hard work has enabled him to move up and become a factor in the scoring.  Andrew Kretschmar ran right on his PR to serve as our 5th man.

The other huge story of this meet was the continued improvement of our freshmen.  I challenged them to see how many guys we could get under 15:00.  We have been teaching them to run aggressively, and they obliged by attacking the race with a lot of courage.  Luke Kierys ran 14:34 and was trailed by teammates Lewis Conley (soph - 14:40), Cole Haas (14:42), Juan Perez (14:53), and Colin Morlock (14:58).  Both Cole and Juan had great races and deserved to break 15:00 for the first time.  All together, we have had 8 different freshmen under 15:00, which is the most we've had since we switched to the Deer Grove course.  Behind those guys, Justin Olson, Vania Acic, Eric Colish, and Jacob Starcevich all had nice races, running better or near their personal bests. 

October 2, 2005 - Palatine Wins Crete for Second Straight Year

Yesterday at Crete we scored 13 points over the seven flights to record our second straight victory and our fourth straight top five finish.  The quality of the meet has diminished a great deal in the last five years, especially with the start of the Lockport Invitational.  Naperville North and Neuqua Valley both dropped out this year, and it impacted the depth of the meet.  Still, we faced tough teams from Waubonsie Valley, Carl Sandburg, and Wheaton North.  We only beat Sandburg by 5 points two weeks ago at Peoria Notre Dame, and we ran better in relation to them this time.  It is always a joke to judge anything by time at Crete since the course changes each year, but we ran fairly well.  We won flights 5-6-7, and I think all three of those guys could have run much faster.  They all cruised in with fairly easy wins, especially Smoody.  We are still working on our top four, and Waubonsie did a nice job to win flights 2, 3, and 4.  Our guys led late in all of those races though, which is encouraging.  We went into the meet with three goals: score less than 20 points, win three flights, and lead in each race past the mile.  We met all three.

September 25, 2005 - Palatine Invite Results

Our kids seem to rise to the occasion each year at the Palatine Invite, and this year was no different.  The boys varsity placed second behind nationally-ranked York.  We also managed to narrowly win the first in a series of tough MSL battles.  The final team scores looked like this for the top five: York 57, Palatine 110, Prospect 118, Barrington 129, and Hersey 233.  Assuming that we both make it to state, we will run Prospect four more times this year so that should be fun.  In the individual battle, Ryan Craven of Prospect seized the race just past the mile mark and never looked back.  His 14:06 was the #2 time ever behind Sean Macnamara's 14:00 from last year.  Steve Finley ran great to take 2nd place in 14:17.  That is the #3 time ever, and the best Palatine time by 15 seconds or so.  Eric Dettman of York was third while Hersey's super sophomore Kevin Havel was 4th.  We had the top four returnees from last year's state meet in the race.

September 17, 2005 - Girls Win, Boys Second at Peoria

Both Palatine programs enjoyed another banner day at the Peoria Notre Dame Invitational on Saturday.  The girls finished 1st out of 44 teams, defeating three of the top teams in the state.  They scored 87 points to better Sandburg (101) and Naperville North (118).  On the boys side we finished second to a tough Glenbard South team by a score of 87-124.  Carl Sandburg gave us a good run to finish third with 129 while Elmhurst York's JV placed fourth overall. 

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.

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!

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.